AT   LOS  ANGELES 


THE  GIFT  Of 

MAY  TREAT  MORRISON 

IN  MEMORY  OF 

ALEXANDER  F  MORRISON 


s 


y% 


TH  E 


HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND 


FROM   THE 


COMMENCEMENT  OF  THE  XIXxH  CENTURY 
TO  THE  CRIMEAN  WAR. 


BY 


HARRIET   MARTINEAU. 


.  ii. 


PHILADELPHIA: 

PORTER   &  c GATE'S, 

822  CHESTNUT  STREET. 


^ 


v, 


CONTENTS. 


BOOK  I. 

1815. 

Page 

Peace  of  Paris 1 

Holy  Alliance 2 

Congress  of  Vienna 3 

Secret  Treaty 5 

Paris  in  the  Autumn  of  1815 7 

Territorial  Limits  settled  by  Peace. .  9 

1816. 

State  of  Parties 12 

Parliamentary  Leaders 13 

Lord  Chancellor  Kldon 14 

Lord  Liverpool  and  his  Colleagues.   15 

The  Opposition 15 

Lord  Cast  lereagh  and  his  Colleagues  16 

The  Opposition 17 

Fourth  Session  of  Fifth  Parliament.  21 

Speech 21 

Property  Tax 25 

Civil  List 31 

Marriage  of  the  Princess  Charlotte.  32 

Agriculture 33 

Manufactures  and  Commerce 43 

Depression  of  Industry 45 

Currency 47 

Labor 50 

Co.-ii  Districts 63 

Machine-breaking 54 

Private  Benevolence 55 

Parliamentary  Reform 59 

Writings  of  Cobbett 62 

Hampden  Clubs 64 

Sp^nceans 67 

Address  of  the  City 72 

Heal  Dangers 72 

Algiers  74 

Bombardment 78 

Progress  of  Social  Improvement. ..  83 

Criminal  Laws 84 

Police 87 

Gas-light 89 

Mendicity  and  Vagrancy 91 

Lnw  of  Settlement 91 

Administration  of  Poor-laws 93 

Education 98 


Savings-banks 102 

Elgin  Marbles 104 

1808  —  1816. 

Spanish  America 106 

Colonial   Misgovernment 106 

General  Miranda 107 

Mr.  Pitt 107 

The  Addington  Cabinet 108 

The  Grenville  Cabinet 109 

The  Portland  Cabinet 109 

The  Perceval  Cabinet 109 

Improvement  of  Brazil 110  . 

Difficulties  of  the  Spanish  Provin- 
cials    110 

Mexico Ill 

New  Grenada  —  Venezuela 113 

Karthnuake  at  Caraccas 115 

Riode  la  Plata 116 

Paraguay  —  Chili 117 

Position  "of  Affairs  in  1816 117 

1817. 

Opening  of  Parliament 119 

Outrage  on  the  Prince  Regent. ...  119 

Alarm 120 

Reports  of  Secret  Committees....  121 

March  of  the  Blanketeers 123 

Derby  Insurrection 125 

Prosecutions  for  Libel 135 

Hone's  Trials 138 

Death  of  the  Princess  Charlotte. .  145 

Sinecures 147 

Roman  Catholic  Claims 148 

Parliamentary  Reform 148 

India  —  Pindarree  War 149 

Mahratta  Wars 161 

1818. 

Meeting  of  Parliament 180 

Prince  Regent's  Speech 180 

Address 182 

State  of  the  Country 183 

Proceedings  of  Parliament 187 

Report  of  Secret  Committees  ....  187 

Bill  of  Indemnity 189 


VI 


CONTEXTS. 


Pas* 

Scotch  Burgh  Reform 195 

Bank  Restriction  Act 199 

Royal  Marriages 201 

Slave-Trade 203 

Alien  Act 204 

Dissolution 206 

General  Klection 208 

Strike  of  Manchester  Spinners 211 

Death  of  the  Queen 212 

Death  of  Sir  S.  Knmilly 213 

Congress  of  Aix-la-Chapelle 214 

State  of  the  Country 218 

Revival  of  the  Reform  Agitation. .  219 

1819. 

State  of  the  Country 221 

Opening  of  Parliament 222 

Care  of  the  King's  Person 222 

Resumption  of  Cash  Payments. . .  225 

Financial  Measures 229 

Prorogation 235 

Condition  of  the  Government 237 

Continuance  of  Reform  Agitation.  2-39 

Condition  of  the  People 241 

Novelties  in  the  Reform  Movement  244 

Drilling 244 

Manchester  Meeting 246 

Conduct  of  the  Manchester  Magis- 
trates    255 

Conduct  of  the  Government 256 

General  Excitement 258 

Session  of  Parliament 261 

Death  of  George  III 262 


BOOK  n 

1820. 

Revival  of  Sedition 263 

Cato  Street  Conspiracy 263 

Alarms 266 

The  King's  Speech 266 

Spies  and  Informers 267 

Sedition  in  Scotland 268 

Trials  of  the  Radicals 268 

The  Demagogue 269 

Accession  of  George  IV 272 

Position  of  the  Queen 273 

King's  Marriage  in  1795 273 

The  Queen  Abroad 277 

The  Queen's  Return : 278 

King's  Message  279 

Queen's  Message. 279 

Commission  agreed  to 280 

Lords' Report.    Queen's  Trial 281 

The  Defence 285 

Abandonment  of  the  Bill 285 

The  Queen'sr Law-officers 285 

Prorogation 286 

The  Queen  goes  to  St.  Paul's 287 


Her  Claim  to  be  crowned 287 

Her  D&ith  and  Funeral 288 

Dissolution  and  New  Parliament. .  290 

State  of  the  Country 291 

Death  of  Grattan 291 

Education 292 

Capital  Punishments 294 

Agricultural  Distress 295 

1821. 

Parliamentary  Reform 297 

Catholic  Claims 302 

Constitutional  Association 303 

King's  Visit  to  Ireland 305 

Coronation 306 

Death  of  Napoleon 306 

Coalition  with  the  Grenville  Party  310 

1822. 

Retirement  of  Lord  Sidmouth 311 

Mr.  Peel  —  Mr.  Can  ing 312 

Lord  Wellesley  in  Ireland 314 

Motion  in  favor  of  Catholic  Peers.  315 

Peterborough  Questions 317 

New  Marriage  Act 319 

Close  of  Session 321 

King's  Visit  to  Scotland 321 

Death  of  Lord  Londonderry 321 

Mr.  Canning  Foreign  Secretary  . .  323 

Lord  Amberst  goes  to  India 323 

Policy  of  Crfstlereagh 324 

The  Princes  and  Peoples  of  Europe  325 

Revolutions  Abroad 327 

Policy  of  Canning 829 

Congress  of  Verona 332 

1823. 

French  Invasion  of  Spain 333 

Overthrow  of  Spanish  Revolution.  336 

South  American  Provinces 337 

Appeal  from  Portugal 342 

New  Era  of  Conflict 344 

Deaths  of  Potentates 345 

Affairs  of  Greece 348 

Algiers 349 

Asbantee  War 350 

Burmese  War 352 

Oregon 354 

Aliens 356 

Changes  in  the  Ministry 360 

Mr.  Canning  and  Mr.  Huskisson. .  364 

The  Debt  and  Taxation 368 

Commercial  Policy 373 

Spitalfields  and  Navigation  Acts..  376 

Parliamentary  Topics 380 

Negro  Slavery 383 

Government  Resolutions 385 

Circular  and  its  Reception •„..  386 

Smith  the  Missionary 387 

Close  of  the  Session". 391 


CONTENTS. 


vu 


1824. 


Page 


Prosperity 392 

Repeal  of'  the  Spitalfields  Acts 394 

Artisan  Restriction  Laws 395 

Free  Trade 396 

Silk  Duties 397 

Wool  Duty 402 

liYtliirtion  of  Duties  and  Bounties.  404 
Uniformity  of  Weights  &  Measures  404 

Close  of  Session 405 

Speculation 406 

Joint-stock  Companies 410 

1825. 

Collapse 413 

Panic 414 

Crash 415 

Issue  of  Small  Notes  and  Coin. . . .  416 

1826. 

King's  Speech 417 

Arrangement  with  Bank  of  Eng- 
land    417 

Suppression  of  Small  Notes 417 

Scotch  Banks 419 

Branch  and  Joint-stock  Banks. . . .  420 

Advances  on  Goods 420 

Position  of  Ministers 420 

Suffering  of  the  Period 422 

Riots 425 

Release  of  Bonded  Corn 428 

Opening  the  Ports 429 

Emigration 430 


Page 

Colonial  Office 431 

Emigration  Committee 432 

Catholic  Question  reviewed 434 

State  of  Opinion  in  1824 445 

Catholic  Association 448 

Catholic  Deputation 449 

Mr.  O'Connell 453 

Progress  of  the  Question 455 

Sir  F.  Burdett's  Relief  Bill 45G 

Duke  of  York's  Declaration 456 

Bill  lost 458 

Catholics  and  Dissenters 459 

Aspect  of  the  Question 461 

Chancery  Reform 462 

Government  moves  for  Inquiry  . .  464 

Report  of  Commissioners 467 

Lord  Eldon 468 

Bill  proposed  '. 468 

Jurors  in  India 469 

Finance 469 

Close  of  Session  and  Dissolution..  472 

The  Elections 473 

Crimes  and  Punishments 475 

Education 480 

Emigration 481 

Arts  and  Discovery 482 

Remarkable  Seasons 486 

Art  and  Literature 489 

Necrology 490 

Politicians 490 

Men  of  Science 491 

Travellers 492 

Artists 494 

Authors 496 

Poets:  Byron,  Keats,  Shelley....  498 
Close  of  the  Period 500 


HISTORY    OF    THE    PEACE. 


BOOK    I. 

FROM  THE  SETTLEMENT  OF  EUROPE  TO  THE  ACCESSION  OF  GEORGE  IV 

CHAPTER    I. 

riHHE  world  was  at  peace. 

On  the  20th  of  November,  1815,  "Viscount  Castlereagh 
and  the  Duke  of  Wellington,  on  the  part  of  the  King  of  Great 
Britain  and  Ireland,  for  himself  and  his  allies,  and  the  Duke 
of  Richelieu,  on  the  part  of  the  King  of  France  and  Navarre, 
put  their  signatures  to  the  definitive  treaty  between  Peac  f 
France  and  the  Allied  Powers.  That  treaty  was  for  Pans,  NOV. 
the  •'  object  of  restoring  between  France  and  her  '  15' 
neighbors  those  relations  of  reciprocal  confidence  and  good-will 
which  the  fatal  effects  of  the  Revolution  and  of  the  system  of 
conquest  had  for  so  long  a  time  disturbed."  At  the  moment  of 
signing  this  pledge  of  peace,  the  Duke  of  Richelieu  described 
it  as  "  a  fatal  treaty." l  "  More  dead  than  alive,"  he  writes  on 
the  2 1  st  November,  "  I  yesterday  put  my  name  to  this  fatal 
treaty."  It  was  fatal  in  his  view,  because  it  contained  "  an  ar- 
rangement framed  to  secure  to  the  allies  proper  indemnities  for 
tluj  past,  and  solid  guarantees  for  the  future."  To  France  alone 
did  this  treaty  of  tlie  20th  November  apply.  The  settlement  of 
Europe,  as  it  was  called,  had  been  effected  by  the  general  treaty 
signed  in  congress  at  Vienna,  on  the  9th  of  June,  1815.  Noth- 
ing remained  but  to  carry  out  the  great  principles  of  justice  and 
truth  which  were  to  heal  the  wounds  of  a  bleeding  world.  Who 
could  doubt  that  the  reign  of  violence  was  destroyed  forever, 
when  the  Emperor  Alexander  of  Russia  proclaimed  that  hence- 
forth the  political  relations  of  the  powers  of  Europe  were  to  be 
founded  on  the  gospel  of  peace  and  love  ?  In  a  manifesto  from 
St.  Petersburg,  dated  "  on  the  day  of  the  birth  of  our  Saviour, 
25th  December,  1815,"  the  emperor  commanded  that  there 
1  Capefigue,  Cent  Jours,  vol.  i 

VOL.  II.  1 


2  HISTOKY  OF  THE   PEACE.  [BOOK  I. 

should  be  ';mrd  in  all  .'the  /Jhtorfihes  a  "  convention  concluded  at 
Hoi  Am-  'I*11"8  on  "the*  iJGtlrof  September,  1815,  between  the 
ance,  Sept.  .  ^Emijew.  of;  Rusgsia^  the'. Emperor  of  Austria,  and  the 
261 181N\  ;  i-King*  of-  'PfufesiA /l"'in  which  "they  solemnly  declare 
that  the  present  act  has  no  other  object  than  to  publish  in  the  face 
of  the  whole  world  their  fixed  resolution,  both  in  the  administra- 
tion of  their  respective  states,  and  in  their  political  relations  with 
every  other  government,  to  take  for  their  sole  guide  the  precepts 
of  the  holy  religion  of  our  Saviour,  —  namely,  the  precepts  of 
justice,  Christian  charity,  and  peace  ;  which,  far  from  being  ap- 
plicable only  to  private  concerns,  must  have  an  immediate  influ- 
ence on  the  councils  of  princes,  and  guide  all  their  steps,  as  be- 
ing the  only  means  of  consolidating  human  institutions,  and  rem- 
edying their  imperfections." 

All  crime  shall  cease,  and  ancient  frauds  shall  fail, 

Returning  Justice  lift  aloft  her  scale, 

Peace  o'er  the  world  her  olive  wand  extend, 

And  white-robed  Innocence  from  heaven  descend. — POPE. 

The  declaration  of  "  the  Holy  Alliance  "  —  for  so  this  conven- 
tion of  the  26th  of  September  was  named  —  was  a  rhodomon- 
tade  which  the  Emperor  Alexander  amused  himself  by  compos- 
ing, with  the  assistance  of  a  "  white-robed  Innocence,"  (called 
Madame  Krudener,1)  whilst  the  prosaic  destinies  of  Europe  were 
being  settled  amidst  a  conflict  of  jarring  interests.  The  mysti- 
cal doctrines  of  political  perfectibility  had  few  disciples,  although 
the  enthusiastic  emperor  labored  unremittingly  for  converts. 
Metteruich  slyly  laughed,  and  handed  it  to  his  master  to  sign  ; a 
Wellington  coldly  bowed,  and  said  that  the  English  parliament 
would  require  something  more  precise.  The  peace  of  Europe 
was  settled,  as  every  former  peace  had  been  settled,  upon  a 
struggle  for  what  the  respective  powers  thought  most  conducive 
to  their  own  aggrandizement.  We  shall  endeavor  briefly  to 
trace  some  of  the  circumstances  of  the  final  settlement  of  1815. 
Time  has  revealed  many  of  the  hidden  movements  by  which 
that  settlement  was  accomplished. 

The  "Treaty  of  Union,  Concert,  and  Subsidy,"  of  the  1st 
Treaty  of  March,  1814,  known  as  the  Treaty  of  Chaumont.  was 
ctmumont,  concluded  between  Great  Britain,  Austria,  Russia, 

r'  '  '  and  Prussia,  whilst  the  contest  with  France  still  re- 
mained undecided.  The  lour  great  powers  were  negotiating  for 
peace  with  Bonaparte,  whilst  war  was  raging  all  around  them. 
The  Treaty  of  Chaumont  declared  that  the  four  powers  had 
"  transmitted  to  the  French  government  proposals  for  concluding 
a  general  peace ; "  and  "  should  France  refuse  the  conditions 

1  "Clothed  always  in  white,  kneel-     commanded  the  elements." — Capejiyuet 
ing  in  the  oratories,  she  seemed  one  of     Restauration. 
the  Druidesses  whose  wonderful  words        2  Capetigue,  Restauration. 


CHAP.  I.]  CONGRESS  OF  VIENNA.  3 

therein  contained,"  that  the  object  of  this  solemn  engagement 
was  "  to  draw  closer  the  ties  which  unite  them  for  the  vigorous 
prosecution  of  a  war  undertaken  for  the  salutary  purpose  of 
putting  an  end  to  the  miseries  of  Europe,  by  reestablishing  a 
just  balance  of  power"  But  this  treaty  was  not  limited  to  the 
attainment  of  peace  alone  —  it  contemplated  a  long  alliance  for 
the  preservation  of  what  should  be  attained  and  established. 
Its  second  object  was,  "  should  the  Almighty  bless  their  pacific 
intentions,  to  fix  the  means  of  maintaining,  against  every  attempt, 
the  order  of  things  which  shall  have  been  the  happy  consequence 
of  their  efforts."  To  this  end  the  four  powers  each  agreed  to 
keep  in  the  field  a  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  effective  men ; 
Great  Britain  engaged  to  furnish  a  subsidy  of  five  millions  ster- 
ling for  the  service  of  the  year  1814;  and  the  duration  of  the 
treaty  was  to  extend  to  twenty  years.  Within  one  month  from 
the  date  of  this  treaty,  the  counter-revolution  of  France  was 
effected,  and  Napoleon  was  decreed  to  have  forfeited  the  throne. 
On  the  23d  of  April,  a  convention  was  agreed  with  the  restored 
government  for  the  suspension  of  hostilities ;  of  which  the  second 
article  left  no  doubt  that  the  just  balance  of  power  was  to  be 
established  by  reducing  France  to  the  territorial  limits  of  the  1st 
January,  1792.  By  the  definitive  treaty  of  peace  of  Treatyof 
the  30th  May,  1814,  some  additions  were  made  to  Peace,  May, 

^rt     1  Rid. 

these  limits.  With  reference  to  the  final  disposal  of  ' 
the  ceded  territories  acquired  by  France  during  the  war,  the 
treaty  was  necessarily  vague.  The  larger  questions  of  contem- 
plated aggrandizement  by  Russia  and  Prussia  were  wholly  left 
out  of  view  ;  all  was  to  be  settled  in  the  general  congress  to  be 
held  at  Vienna. 

The  Congress  of  Vienna  was  not  only  the  most  important 
assembly  that  modern  Europe  had  beheld,  but  it  was,  ConKresg  of 
at  the  same  time,  the  most  imposing  and  ostentatious.  Vienna, 
It  was  accompanied  by  all  the  "fierce  vanities"  of  the 
last  days  of  feudalism  ;  and  the  great  dramatic  poet's  description 
of  the  splendors  of  "  the  vale  of  Andren "  might,  with  little 
alteration,  be  applied  to  the  saloons  of  Vienna  in  the  latter 
months  of  1814.  In  that  city  of  pleasure  were  assembled,  in 
October,  the  sovereigns  of  Austria,  and  Russia,  and  Prussia, 
with  many  of  the  lesser  princes  of  the  Germanic  states.  Em- 
perors shook  hands  in  the  public  streets ;  Metternich  and  Castle- 
reagh  strolled  about  arm  in  arm.  The  royal  negotiators  vied 
with  each  other  in  the  splendor  of  their  entertainments  ;  the 
British  minister,  a  commoner  of  England,  o'ertopped  the  mag- 
nificence of  the  proudest  royalties.  The  old  Prince  de  Ligne 
exclaimed :  "  Le  congres  danse,  et  ne  marche  pas."  They  did 
not  move  on  quite  so  easily  and  agreeably  as  their  outward  de- 


4  HISTORY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [Boon  I. 

lights  and  courtesies  might  seem  to  indicate.  Talleyrand  came 
with  his  profound  adroitness  to  demand  that  France  should  take 
a  part  in  all  the  deliberations.  The  parties  to  the  Treaty  of 
Chaumont  would  have  narrowed  his  claims,  but  he  persevered,  and 
France  regained  her  proper  rank  in  European  diplomacy.  The 
ministers  of  England  and  Austria  had  begun  to  feel  that  ambi- 
tions might  arise  as  adverse  to  the  just  balance  of  power  as  the 
humbled  ambition  of  France  itself.  A  voice  had  gone  forth 
from  the  British  parliament  to  protest  against  the  annexation  of 
Saxony  to  Prussia,  and  the  total  subjugation  of  Poland  by  Rus- 
sia. The  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer  declared  on  the  28th 
November,  in  the  House  of  Commons,  that  he  did  not  believe 
that  any  British  minister  would  be  a  party  to  these  acts.1  It 
was  clear  from  his  own  letters,  that  up  to  the  end  of  October  the 
British  minister  had  been  a  consenting  party  to  the  annexation 
of  Saxony  ;  and  that  he  had  defended  the  annexation  upon  the 
ground  that  the  king  had  been  guilty  of  perpetual  tergiversa- 
tions, and  ought  to  be  sacrificed  to  the  future  tranquillity  of 
Europe.  Of  the  Avishes  and  interests  of  the  people  of  Saxony 
he  made  no  mention.  Austria,  on  the  other  hand,  strongly  pro- 
tested against  the  annexation.  For  three  months  Europe  was 
on  the  brink  of  a  new  war.  France,  having  recovered  a  position 
of  independence  at  the  congress,  demanded  the  restoration  of  the 
Bourbon  dynasty  to  the  throne  of  Sicily  and  Naples,  and  refused 
to  consent  to  the  degradation  of  the  King  of  Saxony.  The 
principle  of  legitimacy  was  violated,  according  to  Talleyrand,  by 
both  these  acts.  Austria  made  common  cause  with  France  in 
the  discussions  upon  Saxony.  Opposed  to  these  powers  were 
the  sovereigns  of  Russia  and  Prussia,  united  by  personal  friend- 
ship, and  most  potential  in  their  military  organization.  "  Secure 
me  Saxony,"  said  Prussia,  "  and  you  shall  have  Poland  ; "  "  Se- 
cure me  Poland,"  said  Russia,  "  and  you  shall  have  Saxony." 
In  these  questions  Great  Britain  had  no  direct  interest ;  but  she 
had  the  great  national  interest  to  uphold,  that  the  weaker  states, 
should  not  be  absorbed  by  the  stronger,  and  that  some  regard  to 
the  people  should  be  shown  in  those  partitions  of  territory  which 
the  wars  of  a  quarter  of  a  century  had  rendered  too  familiar. 
There  was  a  change  in  the  policy  of  the  British  minister  at  con- 
gress. Before  the  end  of  1814,  England,  France,  and  Austria 
were  united  in  demanding  the  integrity  of  Saxony,  and  the  in- 
dependence of  Poland.  On  the  llth  of  December,  the  Arch- 
duke Constantine,  who  had  hurried  from  Vienna,  called  upon 
the  Poles  to  rally  round  the  protection  of  the  Emperor  of  Rus- 
sia ;  the  Prussian  minister  declared  that  Saxony  was  conquered 
by  Prussia,  and  should  not  be  restored ;  Alexander,  in  revenge 
*  Hansard,  November  28, 1814. 


CHAP.  I.]  AN  "HISTORICAL  FACT."  5 

for  the  opposition  of  France  was  resolved  to  support  Murat  on 
the  throne  of  Napjes.  The  rival  powers  began  to  look  to  war. 
There  had  been  a  million  of  allied  men  in  arms  to  resist  the 
aggressions  of  France,  and  to  restore  the  just  equilibrium  of 
power  in  Europe.  That  these  arms  were  now  to  be  turned 
against  eacli  other  was  a  more  than  possible  event ;  it  was  an 
event  to  be  instantly  provided  for  and  regulated  by  those  whose 
mission  was  that  of  peace.  In  the  treaty  of  Holy  Alliance  the 
rulers  of  Austria,  Russia,  and  Prussia  had  solemnly  engaged  to 
"  remain  united  by  the  bonds  of  a  true  and  indissoluble  frater- 
nity; and  considering  each  other  as  fellow-countrymen,  they 
will,  on  all  occasions,  and  in  all  places,  lend  each  other  aid  and 
Assistance."  In  a  secret  treaty  concluded  between  secret  treaty, 
Austria,  England,  and  France  on  the  3d  February,  Feb-  3> 1815- 
1815,  an  engagement  was  entered  into  to  act  in  concert,  each 
with  an  army  of  a  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  men,  to  carry 
into  effect  the  Treaty  of  Paris,  in  the  manner  most  conforma- 
ble to  the  spirit  of  that  treaty ;  "  convinced  that  the  powers 
who  had  to  complete  the  dispositions  of  the  Treaty  of  Paris  l 
ought  to  be  maintained  in  a  state  of  security  and  perfect  inde- 
pendence, and  holding  it  necessary,  in  consequence  of  preten- 
sions recently  manifested,  to  look  to  the  means  to  resist  every 
aggression."  When,  a  year  after  the  date  of  this  treaty,  Mr. 
Brougham  moved  in  the  House  of  Commons  for  a  copy  of 
the  document,  Lord  Castlereagh  resisted  its  production,  on  the 
ground  that  it  might  be  considered  in  the  nature  of  an  unfin- 
ished transaction,  "  a  mere  historical  fact,"  that  could  have  no 
influence  on  our  actual  affairs.  He  contended  that  the  cordial 
cooperation  of  the  allies  in  the  events  of  1815  was  sufficient  to 
show  that  for  all  great  purposes  the  spirit  of  strict  alliance  per- 
vaded the  powers  of  Europe.  Thirty  years  have  passed  since 
this  argument  was  employed.  It  was  a  good  argument  then,  to 
prevent  inconvenient  disclosures;  but  there  requires  little  to 
convince  us  now,  upon  the  clear  evidence  of  this  "historical 
fact,"  that  if  Bonaparte  had  not  leaped  into  the  throne  of  the 
Tuileries  in  the  spring  of  1815,  the  peace  of  Europe  might 
have  been  broken  before  it  was  consolidated.  The  "  historical 
fact "  is  not  without  its  lessons  even  at  the  present  hour.  On 
the  7th  of  March,  Prince  Metternich  received  a  despatch  an- 
nouncing the  hasty  and  mysterious  departure  of  Napoleon  from 
Elba.  On  the  13th  the  solemn  declaration  of  congress  was  pub- 
lished, that  Bonaparte  was  to  be  put  down  as  the  common  enemy 
of  mankind.  The  Congress  of  Vienna  continued  its  delibera- 
tions ;  and  whilst  preparations  for  war  were  made  on  every  side, 
the  general  treaty  of  congress  for  the  settlement  of  Europe  was 
1  Capefigue,  Restauration. 


6  HISTORY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [BOOK  I. 

prepared,  and  was  signed  only  a  week  before  the  battle  of  Quatre 
Bras.  The  points  of  difference  as  to  territorial  limits  were  set- 
tled by  mutual  concessions.  The  principle  of  partition  and  re- 
adjustment of  territory  was  established. 

The  definitive  treaty  of  the  Congress  of  Vienna  was  signed  on 

Treat  of  the  9th  of  June'  ^n  tne  14th  the  Chancellor  of  the 
Congress,  Exchequer  went  down  to  the  House  of  Commons,  and 
June  9, 1815.  gai(j  tnat  ne  ha(j  contracted  a  loan  that  day  for  thirty- 
six  millions,  and  he  asked  for  a  total  amount  for  the  supplies  of 
the  year  —  in  addition  to  the  permanent  charges  of  thirty -seven 
millions  and  a  half — of  no  less  a  sum  than  ninety  millions. 
The  resolutions  of  the  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer  were  agreed 
to,  with  only  one  opposing  speech,  and  without  a  division.  On 
the  18th  the  battle  of  Waterloo  was  fought.  On  the  3d  of  July, 
Paris  was  in  the  occupation  of  the  Anglo-Prussian  army  —  Louis 
XVIII.  was  restored  —  Napoleon  was  banished  to  St.  Helena. 

It  is  not  within  our  province  to  trace  the  various  political  in- 
trigues that  followed  the  restoration  of  the  Bourbons  to  the  throne 
from  which  they  had  been  hurled,  partly  by  their  own  indiscre- 
tions, essentially  by  the  reaction  of  that  fierce  military  spirit 
which  had  held  Europe  in  terror  for  a  quarter  of  a  century. 
There  was  once  more  to  be  a  contest  for  power  between  England 
and  Russia.  England  could  repress  the  national  hatred  of  Prus- 
sia, and  preserve  Paris  from  worse  than  useless  outrage.  She 
could  even  read  France  "  a  great  moral  lesson  "  in  the  restoration 
of  the  works  of  art  to  their  lawful  owners.  But  England  could 
not  preserve  the  influence  which  would  have  secured  France  from 
the  dangerous  revenge  of  the  ultra-royalists.  Talleyrand,  who 
had  raised  his  country  to  the  position  which  she  occupied  at  the 
Congress  of  Vienna,  was  driven  from  the  councils  of  that  king 
who,  a  few  months  before,  was  a  powerless  outcast.  Russia,  it  is 
said,  named  his  successor.  The  ministers  of  England  did  all  that 
remained  to  them  to  do.  The  treaty  of  alliance,  which  accompa- 
nied the  Treaty  of  Paris,  was  forwarded  to  the  French  minister 
with  a  note  which  contained  sundry  excellent  lessons  on  the  duty 
of  uniting  moderation  with  firmness,  and  rejecting  imprudent  or 
impassioned  councils.  "  Indemnities  for  the  past "  were  to  be 
secured  by  France  paying,  by  gradual  instalments,  seven  hundred 
millions  of  francs,  —  a  sum  not  equal  to  the  loan  which  the  Eng- 
lish Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer  raised  in  one  day  ;  "  guarantees 
for  the  future  "  were  exacted  by  the  presence  of  the  army  of  oc- 
cupation for  a  term  of  years,  supported  at  the  expense  of  France, 
and  garrisoning  her  strong  places,  under  the  command  of  the 
Duke  of  Wellington.  England,  having  lost  her  real  influence 
in  the  government  of  France,  retained  the  power  of  making  her- 
self odious.  The  terms  granted  to  the  French  were,  in  truth, 


CHAP.  I.]          PARIS  IN  THE  AUTUMN  OF  1815.  ^ 

moderate.  England,  at  the  height  of  glory,  had  to  pay  penalties 
of  longer  duration,  perhaps  of  greater  severity,  as  the  price  of 
this  tremendous  conflict.  The  last  three  years  of  war  alone  had 
cost  the  country  one  hundred  and  ninety-seven  millions. 

Paris  in  the  autumn  of  1815  presented  a  scene  even  more 
remarkable  than  the  Vienna  of  the  preceding  year.  Parig  jn  the 
The  conquered  city  was  one  universal  theatre  of  guy-  autumn  of 
ety  and  excitement.  Here  was  no  "  Rachel  weeping 
for  her  children."  In  some  dark  estaminet  might  a  solitary  sol- 
dier of  the  disbanded  army  of  the  Loire  be  heard  execrating  the 
presence  of  the  foreigner.  But  the  foreigner  preserved  an  exact 
discipline.  He  paid  for  everything,  and  he  had  ample  means  of 
payment.  "  It  is  from  this  year,  1815,  that  the  greater  part  of 
the  shopkeeping  fortunes  of  Paris  are  to  be  dated."1  The  haughty 
nobles  of  Russia  lavished  their  rents  upon  Parisian  mistresses 
and  gamblers.  Hundreds  of  the  great  English  families  rushed 
to  Paris  to  gaze  upon  the  conquering  armies,  and  to  contend  for 
the  honor  of  a  smile  from  Lady  Castlereagh  in  her  evening  circles, 
or  a  bow  from  the  great  duke  at  his  morning  levee.  All  this 
was  to  end.  The  ministers  and  serf-lords  of  Russia  had  to  return 
to  a  St.  Petersburg  winter,  and  see  how  best  they  could  persuade 
the  Poles  that  their  annexation  was  the  triumph  of  their  inde- 
pendence. The  cautious  diplomatists  of  Austria  had  to  discover 
how  the  hot  Italian  spirits  that  had  dreamt  of  liberty  and  na- 
tional greatness  were  to  sit  down  under  the  leaden  sceptre  of  the 
German  stranger.  Prussian  councillors  of  state  had  to  meet  the 
excited  landwe/ir,  who  had  rushed  to  arms  under  the  promise  of 
constitutional  liberty  ;  and  to  accommodate  the  differences  of  one 
set  of  subjects  with  the  old  German  laws,  and  her  new  Rhine  peo- 
ple with  the  French  code.  The  smaller  German  states  had  to 
rearrange  themselves  under  the  confederation.  Sweden  had  to 
reconcile  Norway.  Holland  had  to  amalgamate  with  Belgium  — 
Protestant  with  Catholic,  and  interpret  Dutch  laws  to  a  French 
race.  Spain,  which  had  put  down  the  Cortes,  had  to  try  if  pro- 
scriptions could  satisfy  a  people  that  had  been  fighting  seven  years 
in  the  name  of  freedom.  Certainly  these  home  prospects  were 
not  so  agreeable  to  the  managers  of  national  affairs  as  the  reviews 
of  the  Bois  de  Boulogne,  or  the  reunions  of  the  Faubourg  St. 
Honore.  Perhaps  to  the  English  ministers,  and  to  their  admir- 
ing followers,  there  was  less  of  apprehension  than  to  the  leaders 
of  those  states  who  had  gained  something  more  solid  than  the 
glory  with  which  England  remained  fomented.  It  was  enough 
for  her  to  believe  that  she  had  won  security.  She  had  proudly 
won  the  semblance  of  it ;  the  one  great  enemy  was  overthrown. 
Still  there  might  be  some  feeling  —  half  fear,  half  disgust  —  at 
*  Capefigue,  Restaijration. 


8  HISTORY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [BOOK  I. 

the  thought  of  the  House  of  Commons,  with  its  searching  ques- 
tions, its  hatred  of  continental  alliances,  its  denunciations  of  broken 
promises,  coming  from  a  small  but.  active  minority.  The  lofty 
port  and  the  cold  politeness  that  befitted  the  table  of  congress 
would  be  there  out  of  place.  Two  years  of  negotiation  in  the 
midst  of  victory  would  not  be  favorable  to  debating  equanimity. 
Hard  every-day  business  would  have  to  be  talked  of  instead  of 
glory.  There  was  but  one  course  :  — 

They  must  either — 

For  so  rim  the  conditions  —  leave  those  remnants 
Of  fool,  and  feather,  that  they  got  in  France, 
With  all  their  honorable  points  of  ignorance, 
And  understand  again  like  honest  men, 
Or  pack  to  their  old  playfellows. 

SHAKSPEARE:  Henry  VIII. 

But  if  the  plenipotentiaries  of  this  country  might  return  home 
a  little  imbued  with  the  temper  of  despotic  cabinets  —  if  they 
could  be  accused  of  having  too  strenuously  asserted  the  principle 
of  legitimacy  —  if  they  had  appeared  to  have  contended  too  much 
for  the  claims  of  kings,  and  too  little  for  the  rights  of  the  people 
—  in  one  respect  they  had  done  their  duty,  and  truly  upheld  the 
Declarations  moral  supremacy  of  England.  They  had  labored 
against  the  strenuously,  and  they  had  labored  with  tolerable  suc- 
siave-trade.  CGS^  for  the  aboi;t;on  of  ^  slave-trade.  In  the  Treaty 

of  Utrecht,  England  protected  her  commercial  interests  —  des- 
picable protection  !  —  by  stipulating  for  a  monopoly  of  the  slave- 
trade  for  thirty  years.  In  the  Treaty  of  Paris,  England  wrested 
from  France  an  immediate  abolition  of  the  traffic,  and  a  declara- 
tion from  all  the  high  contracting  powers  that  they  would  con- 
cert, without  loss  of  time,  "  the  most  effectual  measures  for  the 
entire  and  definitive  abolition  of  a  commerce  so  odious."  This 
was  something  to  set  off  against  the  remarkable  fact  that  Great 
Peace  con-  Britain,  who  had  made  such  enormous  sacrifices  for 
eluded  with-  the  deliverance  of  Europe,  had  not  a  single  commer- 
commerciai  cial  treaty  to  exhibit  as  a  compensation  for  her  prodi- 
treaties.  gaj  disbursements  of  loans  and  subsidies.  During  the 
most  stringent  period  of  Napoleon's  anti  -  commercial  decrees, 
her  commerce  went  on  increasing.  The  people  of  Europe  would. 
have  her  commodities,  and  no  fiscal  power  could  shut  them  ont. 
The  merchants  and  manufacturers  of  England  might  expect  that 
when  all  the  rulers  of  Europe  were  assembled  to  deliberate  upon 
the  future  welfare  of  the  great  European  family,  there  would  be 
some  relaxation  of  that  almost  universal  system  of  high  duties 
and  prohibition  which  denied  to  the  continental  nations  the  ad- 
vantages of  free  marts  for  the  products  of  British  industry.  The 
days  of  neutrals,  and  licenses,  and  armies  of  smugglers,  were  gone. 
Our  diplomatists  came  home  with  no  treaties  putting  their  coim- 


CHAP.  I.]      COMMERCE.  — TERRITORIAL  LIMITS.  9 

try  "  upon  the  footing  of  the  most  favored  nations.''  The  mer- 
chants and  manufacturers  would  not  have  welcomed  them  if  they 
had  come  with  any  treaty  that  went  upon  the  principle  of  buy- 
ing in  the  cheapest  mnrket  and  selling  in  the  dearest.1  Even  the 
Treaty  of  Versailles,  which  Pitt  negotiated  with  France  in  1786, 
would  have  been  offensive  to  the  parliament  of  England  in  181  6, 
for  it  was  a  treaty  of  mutual  concession  and  liberality.  Had 
Lord  Castlereagh  said  to  the  House  of  Commons,  "  I  have  made 
trade  free,"  he  would  have  been  hooted.  The  ship-owners  would 
have  clamored  for  their  beloved  navigation  laws.  The  land- 
owners would  have  driven  him  from  office  had  he  admitted  the 
corn  of  Poland  and  the  wool  of  Saxony.  The  colonial  merchants 
would  have  impeached  him  for  letting  in  the  timber  of  Norway. 
The  manufacturers  would  have  been  in  open  insurrection  at  the 
faintest  rustling  of  the  silks  of  France.  As  it  was,  the  peace 
of  1815  was  constructed  without  the  slightest  effort  to  secure  its 
perpetuity  by  something  stronger  than  conventions  and  protocols 
—  by  uniting  mankind  in  a  bond  of  common  interests. 

We  request  our  readers  to  turn  to  the  map  of  Europe,  and  to 
follow  us  in  a  few  details  which  may  save  some  after-trouble  of 
reference  and  explanation. 

Look,  first,  at  the  kingdom  of  France,  as  its  limits  were  fixed 
in  1815,  nearly  the  limits  of  1790  — the  limits  of  the   Territorial 
present  hour.     It  is  a  noble  territory,  full  of  natural  ^^L 
resources  —  a  land  that  possesses  all  the  elements  of    the  peace. 
real  prosperity  —  a  country  that  must  ever  be  one  of   France, 
the  greatest  powers  of  Europe  — a  military  power,  a  naval  power. 
The  population  of  France,  within  the  limits  fixed  by  the  peace, 
was  in  181.5  about  thirty  millions.     But  before  the  campaign  of 
1812,  the  empire  of  France  embraced  a  population  of  more  than 
fifty  millions ;  the  imperial  domination  extended  over  more  than 
sixty    millions.      There  were    thirty-two  millions  of  people,  in 
1815,  to  come  under  new  laws  and  new  governments. 

The  old   provinces  of  the  Low  Countries  severed  from  the 
empire,  were  raised  up  into  the  kingdom  of  the  Neth-   Kjn  do 
erlaiids  under  the  House  of  Orange.     The  line  which    the  Nether- 
now  separates  Belgium  and  Holland  was  drawn  after  lands> 
the  revolution  of  18oO.     In  1815  this  was  made  a  compact  king- 
dom of  five  millions  of  inhabitants  —  an  agricultural,  a  manufac- 
turing, and  a  commercial  kingdom,  with  noble  colonies.      The 
physical  arrangement  of  such  a  state  was  admirable.      But  the 
moral  overcame  the  material.     The  people  would  not  amalgamate. 

The  Austrian   Netherlands  (Belgium),  with  all  that  part  of 
Germany  which  lie<  on  the  left  bank  of  the  Rhine, 
were  added  to  the  old  territory  of  France  in  1801.    l 
1  Macgregor's  Commercial  Statistics,  i.  p.  3. 


10  HISTORY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [BOOK  L 

The  Rhenish  provinces  were,  in  1815,  bestowed  upon  Prussia  — 
a  fertile  territory,  an  industrious  people.  By  the  Peace  or'  Tilsit, 
Prussia  was  stripped  of  nearly  one  half  of  her  dominions.  The 
Congress  of  Vienna  restored  her  to  her  full  sovereignty.  But 
the  congress  did  more  for  this  great  member  of  the  European 
confederacy.  It  gave  Prussia  one  half  of  Saxony.  It  gave  her 
a  slice  of  the  Duchy  of  Warsaw,  with  a  million  of  people.  The 
map  will  show  better  than  words  what  the  peace  of  1815  did  for 
Prussia.  It  raised  her  from  the  depths  of  her  humiliation  after 
the  battle  of  Jena,  to  take  rank  amongst  the  most  important  of 
European  powers. 

A  territory  larger  than  all  Europe  put  together  —  a  popula- 
tion forming  one  fifth  of  the  whole  of  Europe  —  this  is 
indeed  a  mighty  country,  and  one  that  would  seem  des- 
tined for  universal  monarchy.  But  the  largest  states  are  not 
always  the  strongest.  Russia,  by  its  ascendency  at  the  Congress 
of  Vienna,  obtained  the  kingdom  of  Poland  in  undisputed  sov- 
ereignty, with  four  million  inhabitants.  The  Duchy  of  Warsaw 
was  swept  from  the  domination  of  France.  The  new  kingdom 
had  a  constitution  ;  but  the  old  annexations  of  Poland  to  Russia 
were  to  continue  under  the  absolute  monarch.  The  fabric  was 
too  frail  to  endure. 

Where  vanished  the  French  kingdom  of  Italy,  with  its  six 
Austria, Sar-  million  inhabitants?  Where  all  the  lesser  French  in- 
dinia,  &c.  corporated  states,  Piedmont,  Genoa,  Tuscany,  Lucca  ? 
The  lord  of  the  iron  crown  might  indeed  dream  that  the  Med- 
iterranean would  become  the  French  lake !  Austria  acquired 
the  Lombardo-Veueto  kingdom,  with  its  four  millions  of  inhab- 
itants. Sardinia  annexed  Genoa  to  its  territory,  and  became  a 
more  important  state.  Tlie  States  of  the  Church  were  reestab- 
lished. Naples  and  Sicily  were  restored  to  the  old  Bourbon 
branch.  Tuscany  was  again  a  graud-duchy.  Smaller  states 
are  dotted  about  the  famed  Italian  land.  Visions  of  ancient 
grandeur  have  sometimes  precipitated  its  people  into  revolt ;  but 
the  arrangements  of  1815  have  not  been  disturbed.  Austria 
obtained  as  great  a  prize  in  the  dismemberment  of  the  French 
empire  as  Prussia  and  Russia.  With  a  policy  that  was  undoubt- 
edly the  result  of  the  most  skilful  calculation,  she  sought  no  very 
considerable  enlargement  of  territory  to  the  north.  She  became 
mistress  of  the  Adriatic,  and  carried  her  frontier  to  the  Alps. 

It  is  scarcely  necessary  for  us  to  follow  the  minute  territorial 
Germanic  arrangements  of  the  minor  German  states.  The  Ger- 
Confederation  manic  Confederation  will  require  to  be  noticed  when 
we  have  to  trace  its  internal  workings.  It  was  not  the  least  of 
the  achievements  of  th  -  Congress  of  Vienna,  that  the  contending 
interests  of  a  host  of  petty  princes  were  harmonized  into  some 


CHAP.  I.]       GENERAL  RESULTS  OF  THE  PEACE.  H 

semblance  of  nationality.  One  Germany  to  be  defended  by  the 
confederation  of  independent  states,  raised  up  a  formidable  barrier 
to  external  ambition,  whether  of  France  or  of  Russia. 

The  last  important  territorial  decision  which  it  may  be  neces- 
sary to  point  out,  is  that  of  the  annexation  of  Norway   „ 

•  .  3     Denmark, 

to  bvveden.  Ihis  was  in  accordance  with  the  Conven-  Sweden, and 
tion  of  Kiel,  in  1814,  between  Denmark  and  Sweden.  Norway- 

We  are  now  writing  of  the  settlement  of  Europe  exactly  thirty 
years  since  the  final  act  of  that  settlement,  the  Peace  General  re_ 
of  Paris,  of  November,  18 15.1  From  that  time  there  suits  of  the 
has  been  no  general  war  in  Europe.  Spain  has  passed  peace- 
through  revolution  upon  revolution;  the  South  American  col- 
onies have  acquired  independence  without  strength ;  Italy  has  in 
vain  striven  against  the  rule  of  Austria  and  Sardinia ;  Poland 
has  succumbed  more  entirely  to  the  power  of  Russia ;  Greece 
has  been  raised  into  a  kingdom ;  the  younger  branch  of  the  House 
of  Bourbon  has  obtained  the  throne  of  France,  as  was  contem- 
plated by  some  in  1815  ;  Belgium  has  been  severed  from  Holland. 
Yet  with  all  these  changes  the  five  great  powers  have  not  drawn 
the  sword  from  the  scabbard  to  assault  each  other :  this  is  not  to 
be  forgotten  in  estimating  the  value  of  the  peace  of  1815.  Napo- 
leon, at  St.  Helena,  said  to  O'Meara:  "So  silly  a  treaty  as  that 
made  by  your  ministers  for  their  own  country  was  never  known 
before.  You  give  up  everything  and  gain  nothing."  We  can 
now  answer,  that  we  gained  everything  when  we  gained  thirty 
years  of  repose.  We  gained  everything  when,  after  twenty  years 
of  warfare  upon  the  most  extravagant  scale,  the  spirit  of  the 
people  conducted  that  warfare  to  a  triumphant  end.  The  gains 
of  a  great  nation  are  not  to  be  reckoned  only  by  its  territo- 
rial acquisitions,  or  its  diplomatic  influence.  The  war  which 
England  had  waged,  often  single-handed,  against  a  colossal  tyr- 
anny, raised  her  to  an  eminence  which  amply  compensated  for  the 
mistakes  of  her  negotiators.  It  was  something  that  they  did  not 
close  the  war  in  a  huckstering  spirit  —  that  they  did  not  squabble 
for  this  colony  or  that  entrepot.  The  fact  of  our  greatness  was 
not  to  be  mistaken  when  we  left  to  others  the  scramble  for  ag- 
grandizement, content  at  last  to  be  free  to  pursue  our  own  course 
of  consolidating  our  power  by  the  arts  of  peace.  There  were 
years  of  exhaustion  and  discontent  to  follow  those  years  of  peril- 
ous conflict  and  final  triumph.  But  security  was  won  ;  we  were 
safe  from  the  giant  aggressor.  The  people  that  had  subdued 
Napoleon  —  for  it  was  the  act  of  the  people  —  would  do  the  work 
that  remained  to  them. 

The  imperial  parliament  had  continued   prorogued  from  the 

1  The  reader  will  please  bear  in  mind,  when  dates  are  referred  to,  that  this 
history  was  written  in  1846. 


18  HISTORY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [BOOK  L 

llth  July,  1815,  to  the  1st  February,  1816.  During  this  long 
able  «r  and  unusual  interval  of  legislative  business  —  for  it 
*•**•*•-  had  been  the  previous  custom  for  parliament  to  meet 
early  in  November  —  the  foreign  policy  of  the  administration 
had  been  carried  out  without  the  slightest  control  from  the  repre- 
sentatives of  the  people.  Sir  S-  Bomilly  writes  in  his  diary  of 
the  1st  February  :*  •*  There  has  been  no  period  of  our  history  in 
which  more  important  events  have  passed,  and  upon  which  the 
counsels  of  parliament  —  if  they  be  of  any  utility  —  were  more 
to  be  required,  than  during  this  long  prorogation.*'  It  may  be 
doubted  if  the  counsels  of  parliament  could  have  been  "  of  any 
utility  "  in  deciding  the  great  questions  involved  in  the  irresisti- 
ble triumph  of  the  allied  armies.  Romilly  was  himself  at  Paris 
in  October,  1815.  He  laments  *  over  the  unpopularity  of  the  Eng- 
lish in  compelling  the  removal  of  the  works  of  art  from  the 
Louvre  ;  be  doubts  whether  a  peace  of  long  duration  could  arise 
out  of  the  occupation  of  France  by  foreign  troops;  he  sympa- 
thizes with  those  who  bitterly  complain  of  the  perfidy  of  the  allied 
powers.  Mr.  Homer  has  similar  views  :  *  the  good  fruits  of  the 
French  Revolution  were  to  be  lost  to  France  ;  the  confederacy 
of  courts  and  the  alliance  of  armies  were  to  subject  the  French 
to  the  government  of  a  family  that  they  despise  and  detest  ;  that  the 
people  are  the  property  of  certain  royal  families,  was  to  be  estab- 
lished as  a  maxim  in  the  system  of  Europe  ;  our  army  was  de- 
graded in  being  the  main  instrument  of  a  warfare  against  free- 
dom and  civilization.  If  parliament  had  been  sitting  in  the 
autumn  of  1815,  and  had  these  been  the  general  opinions  of  the 
opposition  as  a  body,  the  Bourbons  might  not  have  been  sup- 
ported by  the  English  diplomatists  in  their  restoration  ;  and  the 
English  army  might  have  been  withdrawn  from  the  occupation 
of  France,  after  the  object  had  been  accomplished  for  which  Eng- 
land had  professed  to  arm  —  the  overthrow  of  Napoleon.  But 
parliament  was  not  sitting  in  the  autumn  of  1815  ;  and,  what  is 
more  important,  the  opposition,  as  a  body,  did  not  hold  these  opin- 
ions. Two  days  before  the  meeting  of  parliament,  Mr.  Homer 
writes  :  *  -  1  fear  we  are  not  likely  to  go  on  very  harmoniously  in 
opposition  ;  there  are  such  wide  and  irreconcilable  differences  of 
opinion  between  those  who,  on  the  one  hand,  will  hear  of  noth- 
ing but  a  return  to  all  that  was  undone  by  the  French  Revolu- 
tion, and  who,  i"»  the  present  moment  of  success,  declare  views  of 
that  sort  which  they  never  avowed  to  the  same  extent  before  — 
and  those  who,  on  the  other  hand,  think  that  the  French  people 
have  some  right  to  make  and  mend  their  government  for  them- 
selves. ....  You  may  expect  very  soon  to  see  a  breach  in  the 


rr,  in.  p.  213.  *  Ibid.  p.  210. 

*  Homer's  Correspondence,  ii.  p.  273.  *  Ibid.  iii.  p.  291. 


CHAP.  I.]  STATE  OF  PARTIES.  13 

opposition ;  T  think  it  cannot  be  averted  much  longer."  Mr. 
Ward  (afterwards  Lord  Dudley)  attributes  to  the  opposition 
motives  which  could  belong  only  to  a  few,  and  which  even  in 
those  few  were  mixed  up  with  something  higher : 1  "  Opposition 
had  staked  everything  upon  Napoleon's  success,  and  are  grieved 
at  his  failure."  Had  Napoleon  succeeded,  there  might  have  been 
unity.  He  fell;  and  the  great  Whig  party  was  broken  for  a 
season.  It  only  recovered  its  power  when  it  took  deeper  root  in 
the  popular  affections.  The  triumph  of  the  British  arms  was 
soon  followed  by  grievous  embarrassments  at  home.  But  the 
people,  at  the  commencement  of  1816,  had  little  sympathy  for 
those  who  were  lamenting  over  the  banishment  of  Napoleon. 
Even  the  chief  Whig  organ,  the  "  Edinburgh  Review,"  complained 
of  "  the  strange  partiality  2  which  has  lately  indicated  itself  for 
him  among  some  of  those  who  profess  to  be  lovers  of  liberty  in 
this  country ; "  and  ridiculed  "  the  sort  of  hankering  after  him 
which  we  can  trace  among  some  of  our  good  Whigs."  The  peo- 
ple had  as  little  respect  for  those  who  grieved  that  France  had 
to  pay  severe  penalties  for  her  long  career  of  spoliation.  The 
success  of  England  was  too  recent  —  the  success  was  too  splendid 
and  overwhelming,  not  to  throw  its  shield  over  just  fears  and 
reasonable  complaints.  It  annihilated  mere  party  hostility.  The 
reaction  was  not  yet  come.  The  fever-fit  of  triumph  had  not  yet 
been  followed  by  the  cold  torpor  of  exhaustion.  For  a  little 
while  the  nation  could  bear  even  the  presumption  of  those  who 
claimed  all  the  merit  of  the  triumph,  and  almost  appeared  to  for- 
get that  never  was  a  government  so  supported  by  the  people  as 
the  English  supported  their  government  during  the  Hundred 
Days.  Mr.  Ward,  a  general  follower  of  the  administration, 
writes  thus  of  the  men  in  power  in  1816  :8  "Their  prodigious 
success  —  which,  without  at  all  meaning  to  deny  their  merits  and 
abilities,  must  be  allowed  by  all  reasonable  men  to  have  been 
vastly  beyond  their  merits  and  beyond  (heir  abilities  —  had  made 
their  underlings  insolent,  and  the  House  too  obedient."  Such 
was  the  position  of  the  two  parties  with  reference  to  external 
politics.  Domestic  concerns,  which  were  soon  to  assume  the 
greater  importance,  were  too  little  regarded  during  the  war  to 
divide  men  into  parties.  The  policy  of  peace  had  slowly  to  con- 
struct the  great  modern  division  of  the  adherents  to  things  as 
they  were,  and  the  advocates  of  things  as  they  should  be  —  the 
enemies  and  the  friends  of  progress. 

Let  us  endeavor,  with  however  feeble  a  pencil,  to  trace  the 
outlines   of  those  who    had  chiefly  to   interpret   the   pariiamen- 
opinions  of  their  time  —  to  attack  and  to  defend  —  to   tar>r  leade»- 

1  Lord  Dudley's  Letters,  p.  145.  2  Edinburgh  Review,  October,  1815. 

»  Lord  Dudley's  Letters,  p.  136. 


14  HISTOKY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [Boon  I. 

propound  lasting  truths  or  fleeting  paradoxes  —  in  the  parlia- 
ment of  1816.  The  greater  number  of  those  who  had  to  debate 
on  the  Peace  of  Paris  sleep  with  those  who  had  to  debate  on 
the  Peace  of  Utrecht.  The  same  narrow  house  that  con- 
tained Oxford  and  Bolingbroke  contains  Liverpool  and  Ca^tle- 
reagh.  Ponsonby  and  Tierney  are  as  insensible  to  the  historic 
regards  of  their  younger  contemporaries  as  are  Stanhope  and 
Hanmer.  The  living  and  the  dead  alike  claim  an  honest  and  im- 
partial estimation. 

On  the  woolsack  sits  John  Scott,  Lord  Eldon.  The  Chancel- 
The  Lord  lor  is  in  his  sixty-fifth  year.  He  has  filled  his  high 
Chancellor,  office,  with  the  exception  of  a  single  year  of  absence 
from  power,  since  1801.  The  consummate  judge  is  in  him  united 
with  the  narrowest  politician.  The  acute  lawyer,  balancing  ev- 
ery question  with  the  most  inflexible  honesty  and  the  clearest 
vision,  is  the  most  one-sided  and  halting  statesman  that  ever  sat 
in  the  councils  of  an  empire  in  which  truth  was  only  to  be  estab- 
lished by  conflict,  and  every  element  of  change  was  in  ceaseless, 
and  for  the  most  part,  healthful  activity.  His  thought  by  day, 
his  dream  by  night,  is  to  uphold  what  he  calls  the  constitution 
—  that  indefinable  compound  of  principles  and  expedients,  that  to 
him  is  as  sacred  as  the  commands  of  Holy  Writ.  Whoever  ap- 
proaches to  lay  his  hands  on  that  ark,  whether  he  come  to  blot 
out  a  cruel  statute,  or  to  mitigate  a  commercial  restriction,  or  to 
disfranchise  a  corrupt  borough,  or  to  break  down  a  religious  dis- 
ability, is  his  enemy.  He  was  the  last  great  man  who  belonged 
to  this  sect.  But  he  acted  with  perfect  honesty  and  unshrinking 
courage  in  the  assertion  of  these  opinions.  He  retained  office 
because  he  professed  the  opinions ;  but  no  one  can  believe  that 
he  professed  the  opinions  to  retain  office.  He  lived  in  times 
when  bursts  of  popular  violence  alarmed  the  peaceful,  and  licen- 
tious expressions  of  opinion  disgusted  the  moderate ;  and  he 
knew  no  other  instrument  but  force  for  producing  internal  peace. 
Yet  he  was  no  hater  of  liberty,  no  assertor  of  the  rights  of  un- 
conditional power.  The  law,  as  it  stood,  was  his  palladium,  yet 
no  one  was  more  ready  to  make  the  natural  course  of  justice  give 
place  to  suspensions  of  the  constitution.  But  in  his  mind  this 
was  to  preserve  the  constitution.  To  lop  off  a  limb  was  life  to 
the  constitution  ;  to  infuse  new  blood  was  death.  It  has  been 
truly  observed  that  he  confounded  every  abuse  that  surrounded 
the  throne,  or  grew  up  within  the  precincts  of  the  altar,  with 
the  institutions  themselves  —  "alike  the  determined  enemy  of 
all  who  would  either  invade  the  institution  or  extirpate  the 
abuse."  r  He  is  one  that  after-times  will  not  venerate  ;  but,  for- 
tunately for  the  fame  of  the  larger  number  of  the  great  ones  of 
1  Brougham's  Statesmen,  series  ii. 


CHAP.  I.]    ELDON.  —  LIVERPOOL.  —  THE   OPPOSITION.        15 

the  earth,  there  is  a  vast  neutral  ground  between  veneration  and 
contempt. 

The  first  Lord  of  the  Treasury  is  the  Earl  of  Liverpool.     He 
has    been   prime    minister  from   1812;    he   has   held   j^,,^^^. 
high   office  from  the  beginning  of  the  century ;    he   pool  and  his 

r  ...  .1 1.,., .,,,., 


colleagues 


ouse 


has  filled  subordinate  offices  from  the  age  of  man-  jn  tn'e°n' 
hood.  Respect  is  on  all  hands  conceded  to  him, —  of  Lords. 
the  respect  due  to  honest  intentions  and  moderate  abilities. 
Admiration  or  disgust  is  reserved  for  his  colleagues.  As  prime 
minister  of*  England,  he  seems  to  fill  something  like  the  station 
which  a  quiet  and  prudent  king  may  fill  in  other  countries. 
He  is  the  head  of  the  nation's  councils,  with  responsible  minis- 
ters. The  conduct  of  the  war  was  not  his ;  he  suffered  others 
to  starve  the  war.  The  peace  was  not  his ;  he  gave  to  others 
the  uncontrolled  power  of  prescribing  the  laws  of  victory.  The 
stupendous  financial  arrangements  of  the  war  were  not  his  ;  they 
were  expounded  by  a  man  of  business  in  the  House  of  Commons. 
The  resistance  to  all  change  was  not  his ;  the  great  breakwater 
of  the  coming  wave  was  his  sturdy  chancellor.  The  people, 
during  his  war-administration,  had  quietly  surrendered  itself  to 
the  belief  that  good  business  talents  were  the  most  essential  to 
the  official  conduct  of  the  affairs  of  nations.  A  long  course  of 
victory  had  succeeded  to  a  long  course  of  disaster  ;  and,  there- 
fore, the  rulers  at  home  were  the  best  of  rulers.  The  great  Cap- 
tain who  saved  his  country,  and  threw  his  protection  over  the 
government,  offered  the  strongest  evidence,  in  after  -  years,  of 
how  little  that  government  had  done  for  him.  Around  the  prem- 
ier sit  the  Home  Secretary,  Viscount  Sidmouth,  and  the  Colonial 
Secretary,  the  Earl  Bathurst.  They  enjoy,  even  in  a  greater 
degree  than  himself,  the  privilege  of  not  being  envied  and 
feared  for  the  force  of  their  characters  or  the  splendor  of  their 
talents. 

It  is  not  quite  easy  to  understand  now  what  constituted  the 
Opposition  in   1816.     The  two  peers  of  the  greatest 

l     i     j   i  i-    -j    j  •      xu    •  •    •  *i  The  Opposi- 

mark  had  been  divided  in  their  opinions  as  to  the  war   tion  in  the 
against  Napoleon  on  his  return  from  Elba.     It  is  little   ]^"£j  of 
doubtful  that  they  were  equally  divided  as  to  the  char- 
acter of  the  peace.     Earl  Grey  stood  at  the  head  of  the  party 
that  denounced  the  intimate  foreign  alliances  which  this  country 
had  formed  in  the  support  of  legitimacy.    He  would  have  treated 
with  Bonaparte.     Lord  Grenville  held  that  the  maintenance  of 
peace  with  Bonaparte  was  impossible,  and  that  consequently  the 
foreign  alliances  and  the  restoration  of  the  Bourbons  were  essen- 
tial parts  of  the  war  policy.     Both  had  been  driven  from  office 
ten  years  before,  through  their  firm  adherence  to  the  support  of 
the    Catholic   claims.     The   natures  of  each  of  these  eminent 


16  HISTORY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [BOOK  1 

statesmen  were  somewhat  haughty  and  uncompromising.  Had 
they  remained  in  power  after  the  death  of  Mr.  Fox,  they  would 
have  probably  differed  as  to  the  conduct  of  the  war.  Had  they 
succeeded  to  power  upon  the  termination  of  the  war,  they  would 
as  certainly  have  differed  as  to  the  character  of  popular  discon- 
tents, and  the  mode  of  appeasing  them.  Lord  Grey  was  a 
Whig-reformer  —  Lord  Grenville  a  Whig-conservative.  On 
the  benches  of  opposition  sat  also  the  Marquis  of  Lansdowne 
and  Lord  Holland.  Their  differences  of  opinion  were  not  of  a 
very  practical  character.  Lord  Lansdowne  saw  in  the  overthrow 
of  Napoleon  the  destruction  of  a  military  tyrant,  and  he  rejoiced 
accordingly ;  Lord  Holland,  a  man  of  large  benevolence,  had  a 
generous  tear  for  a  fallen  foe. 

Turn  we  to  the  House  of  Commons  —  that  assembly  whose 
House  of  voice,  even  when  its  defects  were  most  fiercely  can- 
Commons,  vassed,  went  forth  throughout  the  world  as  the  expres- 
sion of  a  great  and  free  nation.  The  leader  of  the  ministerial 
Lord  Castle-  Pnalanx  is  Robert  Stewart,  Lord  Castlereagh.  To  his 
reagh  and  his  splendid  figure  and  commanding  face  he  has  added  the 
colleagues.  out\Vard  show  of  honors  which  have  not  been  bestowed 
upon  a  commoner  since  the  days  of  Sir  Robert  Walpole.  Me 
is  "  the  noble  lord  in  the  blue  ribbon."  He  has  been  Foreign 
Secretary  since  1812.  He  held  high  office  in  1802.  By  the 
force  of  his  character  he  bore  down  the  calumnies  which  had 
attached  to  his  connection  with  the  government  of  Ireland  before 
the  Union.  The  triumphs  of  the  Peninsula  had  obliterated  the 
recollections  of  Walcheren.  He  comes  now  to  parliament  at  the 
very  summit  of  his  power,  having  taken  but  little  part  in  its 
debates  during  the  mighty  events  of  the  two  previous  years. 
There  is  a  general  impression  that  he  has  a  leaning  towards 
arbitrary  principles,  and  that  his  intercourse  with  the  irresponsi- 
ble rulers  of  the  continent  has  not  increased  his  aptitude  for  ad- 
ministering a  representative  government.  He  will  be  attacked 
with  bitterness;  he  will  be  suspected,  perhaps  unjustly.  But 
he  will  stand  up  against  all  attack  with  unflinching  courage,  and 
unyielding  self-support.  No  consciousness  of  the  narrowness  of  his 
intellect  and  the  defects  of  his  education  will  prevent  him  pour- 
ing out  torrent  after  torrent  of  unformed  sentences  and  disjointed 
argument.  It  is  a  singular  consideration  that  mere  hardihood 
and  insensibility  should  have  stood  up  so  successfully  against 
untiring  eloquence  within  the  walls  of  parliament,  and  deter- 
mined hostility  without.  Lord  Castlereagh  even  succeeded  in 
living  down  popular  hatred.  Round  this  most  fortunate  minis- 
ter of  1816  are  grouped  his  colleagues  —  Nicholas  Vausittart, 
the  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer,  "  the  noblest  work  of  God,"  ac- 
cording to  Pope's  maxim ;  the  Secretary  of  War,  Lord  Palmer- 


CHAP.  I.J          CASTLEREAGH.  — PONSONBY,  ETC.  17 

eton  ;  the  chief  S<-cretary  for  Ireland,  Mr.  Peel ;  and,  somewhat 
out  of  his  place,  the  friend  whom  Canning  raised  to  office  when 
he  ingloriously  went  to  Lisbon  in  1814 —  Mr.  Huskisson. 

The  accredited  leader  of  the  Opposition  is  George  Ponsonby, 
formerly  chancellor  of  Ireland.     He  is  a  prudent  and   The  Q      . 
temperate  leader,  not  remarkable  for  great  powers  as  a   Won. 
debater,  but  a  safe  guide  for  party  men  to  rally  round.    Mr-  Pon- 
One  who  did  not  act  with  him  says : l  '  He  was  the  least 
eminent  man  that  ever  filled  such  a  station."     One  who  did  act 
with  him  writes  in  his  diary : 2  "  He  was  a  very  honest  man,  had 
many  excellent  qualities,  and  possessed  very  considerable  talents  ; 
but  he  was  by  no  means  fit  for  the  situation  which  he  has  for  ten 
years   occupied  —  that   of  leader   of  the   party   of  opposition. 
Beside  him  sits  George  Tierney,  a  parliamentary  vet- 

T  ,  . .          ,, J  •'   a        Mr.  Tierney. 

eran,  who  lias  been  lighting  tor  twenty  years,  chiefly 
in  the  ranks  of  opposition,  once  as  a  member  of  the  Addington 
administration  —  a  financier,  a  wit.  Of  ready  powers  as  a  de- 
bater, of  great  practical  sense,  of  unblemished  private  character, 
he  seemed  fitted  for  higher  eminence  than  he  attained  in  the 
nation's  eyes.  He  was  a  parliamentary  man  of  business  at  a 
time  when  that  high  quality  was  not  valued  as  it  ought  to  have 
been  ;  and,  whether  in  or  out  of  office,  the  best  committee  man, 
the  clearest  calculator,  was  held  as  a  very  subordinate  person  in 
affairs  of  legislation.  He  redeemed,  however,  the  character  of 
the  opposition  in  regard  to  this  quality,  in  which  they  were  held, 
unjustly  enough,  to  be  singularly  deficient;  and  he  almost  suc- 
ceeded in  persuading  his  hearers  and  the  public,  that  genius  and 
industry  may  be  united.  The  nation  seemed  then  to  have  confi- 
dence in  its  administration,  because  it  regarded  its  chiefs  and 
subordinates  as  essentially  men  of  business.  Mr.  Tierney  was 
to  claim  this  confidence  as  the  man  of  business  of  the  opposition. 
He  had  declaimers  enough  about  him  to  make  the  attribute  not 
too  infectious.  Mr.  Tierney  was  the  man  of  financial  detail. 
There  was  one  who  then  chiefly  dedicated  himself  to  the  neg- 
lected walk  of  political  economy.  Francis  Homer  had  Francis 
won  a  high  reputation  by  the  unremitting  assertion  of  Horner- 
large  principles  which  indolence  and  prejudice  had  shrunk  from 
examining.  More  than  any  man  he  had  gone  to  the  root  of  finan- 
cial difficulties.  His  opinions  were  to  be  adopted  when  he  lived 
not  to  expound  them  —  others  were  to  carry  them  into  practice. 
It  is  something  to  be  an  earnest  thinker  in  an  age  of  debaters. 
His  are  labors  that  have  more  endurance  than  mere  party  em- 
inence. In  the  same  ranks  are  a  few  other  laborers  "  for  all 
time." 

On  the  bench  of  honor  sits  one  whose  lofty  port  and  composed 

i  Lord  Dudley's  Letters,  p.  171.  2  Romilly's  Life,  iii.  p.  307. 

vou,  11.  2 


18  HISTORY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [BOOK  I. 

features  show  him  to  be  a  man  of  no  common  aspirations.  His 
Sir  s.Rom-  habitual  expression  is  earnest,  solemn,  almost  severe. 
iuy-  He  has  a  great  mission  to  fulfil,  far  above  party  pol- 

itics and  temporary  contentions.  Yet  he  is  a  partisan,  but  not 
in  the  ordinary  sense  of  the  word.  He  is  sometimes  bitter,  prej- 
udiced, perhaps  vindictive ;  yet  no  one  more  deeply  feels  than 
himself  that  this  is  not  the  temper  for  the  attainment  of  great 
social  improvements.  His  hopes  are  not  sanguine.  He  sees 
little  of  amelioration  in  the  present  aspect  of  affairs ;  he  fancies 
that  evil  principles  are  in  the  ascendant.  He  has  nearly  readied 
his  sixtieth  year ;  he  has  been  in  parliament  only  ten  years. 
But  during  that  short  period  he  has  left  an  impression  upon  that 
assembly  never  to  be  obliterated.  That  lawyer,  the  acknowl- 
edged head  of  his  own  class,  who  in  the  House  of  Commons  has 
won  the  highest  reputation  for  sincerity  of  purpose,  for  vast  abil- 
ity, for  the  eloquence  of  a  statesman  as  distinguished  from  that 
of  an  advocate,  never  rises  without  commanding  the  respect  of  a 
body  not  favorable  to  the  claims  of  orators  by  profession.  His 
forensic  duties  are  too  vast,  his  devotion  to  them  too  absorbing, 
the  whole  character  of  his  mind  too  staid  —  perhaps  too  little 
imaginative  and  pliant  —  to  make  him  the  leader  of  his  own  scat- 
tered party.  But  as  the  founder  of  the  noblest  of  our  improve- 
ments, the  reform  of  our  hateful  and  inoperative  penal  laws,  lie 
will  do  what  the  most  accomplished  and  versatile  debater  would 
have  left  undone.  He  will  persevere,  as  he  has  persevered, 
amidst  neglect,  calumny,  the  frowns  of  power,  the  indifference 
of  the  people.  The  testament  which  he  bequeathes  will  become 
sacred  and  triumphant.  That  man  is  Sir  Samuel  Romilly. 

The  place  which  Whitbread  filled  is  vacant.  A  sudden,  mys- 
terious, and  most  melancholy  death  had  silenced  that  fearless 
tongue,  which,  as  it  was  the  last  to  denounce  the  war  of  1815, 
would  have  been  the  first  to  tear  in  pieces  the  treaties  which  that 
war  had  consummated.  The  miserable  and  oppressed  listened 
to  him  as  their  friend  and  deliverer.  His  political  enemies  ac- 
knowledged his  inflexible  honesty.  His  love  of  justice  made 
him  generous  even  to  those  whom  he  habitually  opposed.  He 
had  been  for  several  years  the  true  leader  of  the  opposition,  and 
he  had  led  them  with  right  English  courage.  Others  might  win 
by  stratagem ;  he  was  for  the  direct  onslaught.  He  perished  the 
day  after  Paris  capitulated.  Two  nights  before,  he  had  spoken 
in  the  House  of  Commons.  His  health  had  been  long  broken. 
He  was  desponding  without  a  cause.  Insanity  came,  and  then 
the  end.  A  French  writer  has  had  the  vulgar  audacity  to  say 
that  Whitbread  destroyed  himself  because  he  could  not  bear  the 
triumph  of  his  country  at  Waterloo.  The  same  writer  affirms 
that  Canning  betrayed  to  Fouche  the  plans  of  Castlereagh  for 


CHAP.  I.]     HENRY  BROUGHAM.  — THE  ABOLITIONISTS.      19 

the  expedition  to  Walcheren.  Both  falsehoods  may  sleep  to- 
gether. No  two  men  more  dearly  loved  their  country,  whatever 
they  might  think  of  its  policy.  The  place  of  Whitbread  is 
vacant.  He  that  comes  to  earn  the  succession  to  the  same  real 
leadership  is  not  an  unknown  man  —  he  is  the  Henry  iienry 
Brougham  who,  having  appeared  at  the  bar  of  the  Br°ugham. 
House  of  Commons,  in  1S08,  as  counsel  for  the  great  body  of 
merchants  and  manufacture'rs  against  the  orders  in  council,  car- 
ried the  repeal  of  those  impolitic  orders  in  1812,  after  seven 
weeks  of  the  most  laborious  and  incessant  exertion,  almost  unex- 
ampled in  the  records  of  parliament.  For  three  years,  the  place 
which  he  had  won  by  a  combination  of  industry  and  talent  al- 
most unprecedented  had  been  surrendered  to  other  tribunes  of 
the  people.  The  moment  in  which  he  reappears  is  somewhat 
unfavorable  to  the  highest  exertions  of  his  powers,  for  he  has  no 
worthy  opponent.  George  Canning  is  not  in  his  place  in  parlia- 
ment. He,  who  had  sighed  for  peace,  as  Pitt  sighed  in  the  - 
gloomy  days  of  Austerlitz  and  Jena,  was  out  of  office  during  the 
triumphs  of  Leipsic  and  Vittoria.  The  peace  of  1814  was  accom- 
plished without  his  aid.  He  had  bowed  before  the  humbler  tal- 
ents of  his  rival  colleague,  whom  military  success  abroad  had 
raised  up  into  a  disproportioned  eminence  at  home.  Time  has 
shown  how  Canning  was  hated  and  feared  by  a  large  number  of 
those  who  professed  a  common  allegiance  with  himself  to  the 
principles  of  the  son  of  Chatham.  The  hate  and  the  fear  applied 
as  much  to  his  principles  as  to  his  talents.  The  government  of 
1814  had  secured  his  allegiance,  and  drawn  the  sting  of  his 
dreaded  adherence  to  Liberal  policies.  They  disarmed  him  ; 
they  had  wellnigh  degraded  him.  They  opened  the  session  of 
181 G  in  the  confidence  that  they  could  do  without  him.  "  They 
wondered  what  use  he  could  be  of,  and  why  Lord  Liverpool 
could  have  thought  of  making  any  terms  with  him."  1  On  the 
10th  June,  Canning  took  his  place  in  the  House  of  Commons  as 
President  of  the  Board  of  Control.  The  ten  years  which  fol- 
lowed look  like  tlie  last  days  of  parliamentary  eloquence.  What 
is  left  us  may  work  as  well ;  but  at  any  rate  it  is  something  dif- 
ferent. 

The  cross-benches  of  neutrality  in  the  House  of  Commons  are 
not  over-full.  The  party  of  Canning  has  been  scattered.  But 
there  sit  a  knot  of  men  who  hold  the  scales  in  one  of  the  great- 
est questions  —  perhaps  the  most  interesting  question  —  that  was 
ever  agitated  within  the  walls  of  parliament.  It  is  the  party  of 
the  abolitionists  of  the  slave-trade.  Victory  abroad  is  to  them 
defeat,  if  it  bring  not  the  consummation  of  their  hopes  in  the 
acts  of  foreign  governments.  At  the  peace  of  1814,  France  — 
1  Lord  Dudley's  Letters,  p.  137. 


20  HISTOKY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [Boo*  I. 

the  restored  government  of  France  —  restored  by  our  money 
and  our  arms  —  refused  to  consent  to  the  immediate  abolition. 
Bonaparte,  amidst  his  memorable  acts  of  the  Hundred  Davs, 
abolished  the  hateful  traffic  by  a  stroke  of  his  pen  —  and  it  was 
abolished.  The  Bourbon  government,  a  second  time  restored, 
dared  no  longer  refuse  this  one  demand  of  Great  Britain.  Had 
they  refused,  the  British  minister  could  scarcely  have  met  the 
parliament.  He  is  now  come  to  say  that  France  has  decreed 
that  there  shall  be  an  end  to  this  sin  and  shame.  Other  nations 
have  promised.  But  —  is  it  to  be  told  that  where  we  might 
have  commanded,  there  alone  is  resistance?  —  Spain  and  Portu- 
gal still  maintain  the  traffic.  The  firm  band  of  abolitionists  are 
MI  wnber-  secure  that  their  silver-tongued  leader  —  he  who  re- 
foi&e.  signed  every  meaner  ambiiion  to  give  freedom  to  the 

oppressed  —  will  persevere  through  good  report  and  evil  report, 
with  or  without  friends  in  power,  till  the  chains  of  the  negro  are 
broken  forever.  They  fear  not  enemies,  they  truckle  not  for 
friends ;  they  have  a  support  above  what  the  world  can  give. 
This  "  baud  of  brothers  "  —  reviled  or  honored,  proselytizing  or 
solitary  —  will  hold  their  ground.  They  are  the  only  united 
body  of  enthusiasts  in  an  age  of  political  calculation.  They 
will  manifest,  as  they  have  manifested,  what  enthusiasm  may 
accomplish. 


CHAP.  II.]          THE   PRINCE   REGENT'S   SPEECH.  21 


CHAPTER  II. 

THE   House   of  Commons   of  1816  presented  a  remarkable 
spectacle.    The  ministry  met  the  representatives  of  the   _ 

i          •  i        11     ,  .  ,  n  Fourth  ses- 

people  with  all  the  pride  and  confidence  of  a  triumph  don  of  the 
beyond  hope.  The  ministerial  leader  came  flushed  ^ht^fa[h^" 
from  his  labors  of  restoration  and  partition,  and  took  united 
his  seat  amidst  shouts  such  as  saluted  Caesar  when  he 
went  up  to  the  Capitol.  The  march  to  Paris,  twice  over,  says 
a  conspicuous  actor  in  the  politics  of  that  hour,1  was  sufficiently 
marvellous  ;  '•  but  it  appeared,  if  possible,  still  more  incredible, 
that  we  should  witness  Lord  Castlereagh  entering  the  House  of 
Commons,  and  resuming,  amidst  universal  shouts  of  applause,  the 
seat  which  lie  had  quitted  for  a  season  to  attend  as  a  chief  actor 
in  the  arrangement  of  continental  territory."  The  opposition, 
considered  numerically,  were  a  broken  and  feeble  body  ;  but,  in- 
tellectually and  morally,  their  strength  was  far  more  formidable 
iu  this  the  fourth  session  of  the  parliament  than  at  any  previous 
period  of  its  duration.  In  opposing  the  enormous  war  expen- 
diture from  1812  —  in  resisting  the  determination  to  make  no 
peace  with  Napoleon  —  they  had  not  with  them  the  national 
sympathy.  The  tables  were  turned.  They  had  now  to  contend 
against  the  evident  partiality  for  continental  alliances  —  the 
enormous  standing  army  —  the  excessive  peace  expenditure  — 
the  desire  to  perpetuate  war  taxes.  They  were  supported  by 
public  opinion,  for  the  once  accredited  indivisibility  of  peace  and 
plenty  appeared  to  be  wholly  at  an  end.  The  people  were  suf- 
fering, and  the  excitement  of  the  struggle  against  the  domination 
of  France  having  passed  away,  they  were  not  disposed  to  suffer 
in  silence. 

The  speech  from  the  throne,  delivered  by  commissioners,  was 
necessarily  a  speech  of  congratulation.     Splendid  sue-   The  p^^ 
cesses,  intimate  union,  precautionary  measures,  these   Regent's 
were  the  key-notes  to  our  foreign  policy ;    manufac-   8peec  ' 
tures,  commerce,  and  revenue  were,  somewhat  rashly,  declared 
to  be  flourishing  at  home  ;  economy  was  hinted  at,  —  economy 
consistent  with  the  security  of  the  country,  "  and  with  that  sta- 
tion which  we  occupy  in  Europe."    In  the  House  of  Lords  there 
1  Brougham's  Speeches,  i.  p.  634.    Introduction  to  Speech  on  Holy  Alliance. 


22  HISTORY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [BOOK  L 

was  no  amendment  to  the  address.  In  the  Commons  a  bootless 
amendment,  which  was  seconded  by  Lord  John  Russell,1  declared 
the  country  to  be  suffering  under  "  unexampled  domestic  embar- 
rassments," and  demanded  "  a  careful  revival  of  our  civil  and  mil- 
itary establishments,  according  to  the  principles  of  the  mo#t  rigid 
economy."  The  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer  on  this  occasion 
declared  his  intention  to  continue  the  property  or  income  tax,  on 
the  modified  scale  of  five  per  cent,  This  avowal  was  the  sign:il 
for  one  of  the  chief  battle-cries  which  were  to  lead  on  the  scanty 
powers  of  opposition.  Party  hostility  was  not  disarmed  by  the 
deportment  of  the  foreign  minister.  Mr.  Brougham  having  de- 
nounced Ferdinand  of  Spain  as  "a  contemptible  tyrant,"  Lord 
Castlereagh  thereupon  deprecated  2  "  that  scrutinizing  criticism  of 
the  internal  policy  of  foreign  countries,  which  could  only  be  prop- 
erly exercised  at  home."  The  lecture  was  not  forgotten. 

The  treaties  with  foreign  powers  were  presented  to  parliament 
on  the  first  day  of  the  session.    The  formal  debate  upon 

Treaties 

them  was  deferred  for  a  fortnight.  Mr.  Brougham 
had  previously  brought  forward  a  motion  for  the  production  of 
a  copy  of  the  treaty  between  Russia,  Austria,  and  Prussia,  of 
the  26th  September,  1815,  —  the  treaty  of  Holy  Alliance. 
Lord  Castlereagh  had  declared,  when  notice  of  Mr.  Brougham's 
motion  was  given,  with  reference  to  this  extraordinary  document, 
that  "  its  object  was  confined  solely  to  the  contracting  parties,  and 
breathed  the  pure  spirit  of  the  Christian  religion."  The  motion 
was  of  course  rejected.  It  was  not  till  a  later  period  of  our 
history  that  it  was  shown  that  there  was  cause  for  alarm,3  "  when 
sovereigns  spoke  of  leading  armies  to  protect  religion,  peace,  and 
justice."  Mr.  Brougham  also  moved  *  for  a  copy  of  a  treaty 
said  to  have  been  concluded  at  Vienna  in  January,  1815.  Lord 
Castlereagh  admitted  the  existence  of  such  a  treaty,  and  that 
this  country  had  been  a  party  to  it ;  but  he  refused  to  produce  it, 
affirming  that  it  was  a  mere  matter  of  history.  "  Yes,"  said  Mr. 
Tierney,5  "  and,  like  other  matter  of  history,  it  was  necessary 
that  it  should  be  known,  because  the  knowledge  of  it  bore  on 
other  times."  It  appears  to  have  been  considered  in  the  House 
of  Commons  that  this  alliance  was  directed  solely  against  Russia. 
The  "  historical  fact "  has  become  clearer ;  the  contracting  powers, 
tbus  prepared  for  the  last  resort,  had  not  a  common  danger  once 
more  united  them,  were  Austria,  France,  and  England,  against 
Russia  and  Prussia.  The  motion  for  the  production  of  this  treaty 
was  also  rejected. 

Before  the   great  discussion  upon  the  general  treaties   took 

1  Lord  John  Russell  was'in  parliament  in  1814. 

2  Hansard,  xxxii.  p.  48.  s  Mr.  Brougham's  Speech. 
4  Hansard,  xxxii.  p.  353.  &  ibid.  p.  370. 


CHAP.  II.]     PKESUMPTION   OF  THE  GOVERNMENT.  23 

place,  the  government  declarer!  its  intention  with  regard  to  the 
peace  establishment.  There  was  to  be  an  army  of  a  hundred 
and  fifty  thousand  men,  maintained  at  an  expense  of  little  short 
of  thirty  millions ;  and  the  secretary  for  foreign  affairs  justified 
this  course  by  the  example  of  the  large  military  establishments 
of  the  other  nations  of  Europe.  It  was  on  a  debate  in  the  com- 
mittee of  supply  that  Lord  Castlereagh  used  the  memorable  ex- 
pression which  roused  a  spirit  in  the  country  of  deep  hostility, 
almost  of  disgust : 1  "  He  felt  assured  that  the  people  of  England 
would  not,  from  an  ignorant  impatience  to  be  relieved  from  the 
pressure  of  taxation,  put  everything  to  hazard,  when  everything 
might  be  accomplished  by  continued  constancy  and  firmness." 
From  the  moment  of  this  offensive  declaration,  the  income  tax  was 
doomed.  The  people  had  not  borne  the  taxation  of  so  many  years 
of  war  with  a  heroism  such  as  no  people  had  ever  before  shown, 
to  be  taunted  with  ignorant  impatience  of  taxation,  now  that 
they  had  won  peace.  The  presumption  of  the  government  at 
this  period  was  calculated  to  produce  a  violent  reaction  through- 
out the  land.  In  parliament  it  produced  alarms  which  now  look 
exaggerated,  but  which  men  of  unquestioned  integrity  most  cer- 
tainly entertained.  The  minor  questions  of  continental  arrange- 
ments were  less  regarded,  and  wisely  so,  than  the  peculiarities 
of  our  internal  position.  Men  really  thought  that  the  old  Eng- 
lish spirit  of  freedom  was  about  to  be  trampled  upon.  Lord 
Grenville,  who  on  the  first  night  of  the  session  had  given  his 
heartiest  assent  to  the  address,  rejoicing  in  the  mode  by  which  the 
peace  had  been  accomplished — the  restoration  of  the  Bourbons  — 
now  caused  the  Lords  to  be  summoned  ;  and  on  the  1 4th  February, 
in  moving  for  the  estimates  for  the  military  service  for  the  year, 
delivered  a  speech  that  spoke  something  of  the  spirit  of  "  the 
good  old  cause."  He  said  :  *  "  The  question  which  their  lord- 
ships had  now  to  consider  was,  whether,  after  a  struggle  of 
twenty-five  years,  maintained  by  such  immense  efforts,  and  at 
such  vast  expense,  they  were  at  length  to  obtain  the  blessings  of 
that  real  peace  for  which  they  had  so  long  contended,  or  whether 
their  situation  was  to  be  exactly  the  reverse  ?  Whether  they 
were  still  to  be  charged  with  an  immense  military  establish- 
ment ;  whether  they  were  now  to  be  called  upon  to  take  their 
rank  among  the  military  states  of  the  continent ;  whether  they 
were  to  abandon  the  wise  maxims  and  policy  of  their  forefathers, 
by  which  the  country  had  risen  to  such  a  height,  and  had  been 
enabled  to  make  such  great  exertions,  and,  at  an  humble  dis- 
tance, turn  servile  imitators  of  those  systems  which  had  been 
the  cause  of  so  much  distress  and  calamity  to  the,  nations  by 
which  they  had  been  adopted  and  maintained  ?  "  The  prime 
1  Hansard,  xxxiii.  p.  455.  -  Ibid,  xxxii.  p.  512. 


24  HISTOKY   OF   THE  PEACE.  [Boon  I. 

minister,  in  replying  to  Lord  Grenville,  called  these  "  extraor- 
dinary and  unreasonable  fears."  But  they  were  reechoed  on 
many  sides.  When  the  great  debates  on  the  treaties  at  length 
took  place,  in  which  the  Earl  of  Liverpool  moved  the  address, 
Lord  Grenville  proposed  an  amendment  which  deprecated  in  the 
strongest  language  '•  the  settled  system  to  raise  the  country  into  a 
military  power."  The  House  divided,  the  government  having  a 
majority  of  sixty-four.  Lord  Holland  protested  against  the  ad- 
dress, in  terms  which  embodied  his  speech  upon  the  treaties,  and 
expressed  the  opinions  of  that  section  of  the  opposition  :  "  Because 
the  treaties  and  engagements  contain  a  direct  guarantee  of  the 
present  government  of  France  against  the  people  of  that  country  ; 
and  in  my  judgment  imply  a  general  and  perpetual  guarantee  of  all 
European  governments  against  the  governed."  In  the  House  of 
Commons  the  Foreign  Secretary  moved  the  address  upon  the 
treaties.  An  amendment  was  proposed  by  Lord  Milton,  which 
deprecated  the  military  occupation  of  France,  and  the  unexam- 
pled military  establishments  of  this  country.  The  debate  lasted 
two  nights,  the  address  being  finally  carried  by  a  majority  of  a 
hundred  and  sixty-three.  Romilly,  in  his  diary,  has  noted  down 
the  heads  of  his  own  speech  : 1  "  As  I  consider  this  as  the  most 
important  occasion  that  I  ever  spoke  on,  I  have  been  desirous  of 
preserving  the  memory  of  some  of  the  things  I  have  said."  The 
importance  of  the  occasion  could  not  have  been  over-estimated. 
But  what  was  said  on  both  sides  was,  to  a  considerable  extent, 
the  regular  display  of  party  conflict.  The  exultations  of  the 
government  at  the  settlement  of  their  war  labors  look  now 
scarcely  more  inflated  than  the  fears  of  some  members  of  tlie 
opposition  that  the  confederated  arms  of  the  despots  of  Europe 
might  be  turned  against  the  liberties  of  England.  The  practical 
business  that  was  at  hand  —  the  enforcement  of  economy,  the 
alleviation  of  di-tress  —  was  the  matter  of  real  importance  that 
was  to  grow  out  of  these  debates.  There  can  be  no  doubt,  how- 
ever, that  there  was  a  strong  and  sincere  belief  amongst  many 
good  men  that  the  liberties  of  this  country  were  in  eventual 
peril.  Horner,  in  the  debate  on  the  treaties,  made  a  very  power- 
ful speech ;  and  a  week  after,  he  thus  writes  in  the  confidence 
of  private  friendship  :  2  "  We  are  nearly  declared  to  be  a  mili- 
tary power.  If  this  design  is  not  checked,  of  which  I  have 
slender  hopes,  or  does  not  break  down  by  favor  of  accidents, 
we  shall  have  a  transient  glory  for  some  little  while.  The 
bravery  of  our  men.  the  virtues  which  the  long  enjoyment  of 
liberty  will  leave  long  after  it  is  gone,  and  the  financial  exertions 
of  which  we  are  still  capable,  will  insure  us  that  distinction  ; 
but  it  is  a  glory  in  which  our  freedom  will  be  lost,  and  which 
i  Komilly's  Life,  iii.  p.  22;).  2  Homer's  Memoirs,  ii.  p.  315. 


CHAP.  II.]  THE   PROPERTY  TAX.  25 

cannot  maintain  itself  when  the  vigor,  born  of  that  freedom,  is 
spent."  Visionary  as  we  may  now  regard  these  opinions  to  be, 
the  expression  of  them  had  its  use.  When  Horner  rejoiced 
that  he  had  "  his  breath  out  about  the  Bourbons  and  Castle- 
reagh,"  he,  in  common  with  other  eminent  men  of  his  party,  did 
something  to  repress  the  spirit  which  success  had  produced  in 
high  places.  The  ultra-Whigs,  when  they  groaned  over  the 
captivity  of  Napoleon  —  when  they  shut  their  eyes  to  much  that 
had  been  really  high-minded  in  the  conduct  of  the  all  es  towards 
France  —  when  they  saw  only  danger  in  the  future,  overlooking 
the  mighty  peril  from  which  we  had  escaped  —  had  not  the 
country  with  them.  They  had  not  the  support  of  the  great  bulk 
:f  the  intelligent  population,  who,  except  on  special  occasions, 
are  not  party  politicians.  But  when  they  addressed  themselves, 
not  as  partisans,  but  as  earnest  representatives  of  the  people,  to 
reduce  the  public  burdens,  and  to  repress  a  career  of  wasteful 
expenditure,  they  were  on  safer  ground. 

The  corporation  of  London  took  the  lead  in  the  national  ex- 
pression of  opinion  against  the  property  tax.  Their  property 
petition  complained  of  the  violation  of  the  solemn  tox- 
faith  of  parliament ;  of  the  injustice,  vexation,  and  oppression 
of  this  tax  —  of  the  partiality  of  taxing,  in  the  same  proportion, 
incomes  of  a  short  duration,  and  those  arising  from  fixed  and 
permanent  property ;  they  acknowledged  the  depressed  state  of 
the  agricultural  interests,  but  they  contended  that  the  manu- 
facturing and  trading  interests  were  equally  depressed,  and 
equally  borne  down  with  the  weight  of  taxation  ;  they  finally 
called  for  reduction  in  the  public  expenditure,  and  the  abolition 
of  all  unnecessary  places,  pensions,  and  sinecures.  It  was  not 
alone  the  anti-ministerial  party  of  the  city  that  joined  in  the 
petition  ;  the  judgments  of  mercantile  men  against  the  continu- 
ance of  the  tax  were  almost  universal.  The  dislike  of  the  rural 
population  was  as  fixed  as  that  of  the  inhabitants  of  towns.  The 
battle  against  this  tax  was  one  of  the  most  remarkable  examples 
of  parliamentary  strategy  that  was  ever  displayed  ;  and  the  his- 
tory of  tliH  struggle  has  been  most  pithily  told  by  the  leading 
tac  ician : 1  "On  the  termination  of  the  war,  the  government 
were  determined,  instead  of  repealing  the  whole  income  tax, 
which  the  act  enforcing  it  declared  to  be  'for  and  during  the 
Continuance  of  the  war,  and  no  longer,'  to  retain  one  half  of  it 
—  that  is,  to  reduce  it  from  ten  to  five  per  cent  —  and  thus 
keep  a  revenue  raised  from  this  source  of  between  seven  and  eight 
millions,  instead  of  lit'teen.  As  soon  as  this  intention  was  an- 
nounced, several  meetings  were  held,  and  two  or  three  petitions 

1  Brougham's  Speeches:  Introduction  to  Speeches  ou  Agricultural  ;uid  Man- 
ufacturing Distress,  i.  p.  495. 


26  HISTORY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [BOOK  I. 

were  presented.  The  ministers  perceived  the  risk  they  ran,  if 
the  policy  should  be  pursued,  of  continued  discussion  for  a  length 
of  time ;  and  they  saw  the  vast  importance  of  despatch.  Ac- 
cordingly, the  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer  gave  notice  on  the 
Tuesday  for  his  motion  on  the  Thursday  immediately  following. 
The  opposition  took  the  alarm,  and  Mr.  Brougham  declared,  on 
presenting  a  petition,  numerously  signed,  from  one  of  the  London 
parishes,  that  if  the  hurry  now  indicated  should  be  persevered 
in,  he  should  avail  himself  of  all  the  means  of  delay  afforded 
by  the  forms  of  the  House.  Lord  Folkestone,  one  of  the  most 
strenuous,  and  in  those  days  one  of  the  most  active  and  powerful 
supporters  of  the  popular  cause,  vigorously  seconded  this  men- 
ace, in  which  he  entirely  joined.  On  the  next  day,  more  petitions 
were  tlung  in,  more  discussions  took  place,  and  the  government 
postponed  for  a  week  the  introduction  of  the  bill.  That  week 
proved  quite  decisive ;  for  so  many  meetings  were  held,  and  so 
many  petitions  sent  up,  that  the  bill  was  put  off  from  time  to 
time,  and  did  not  finally  make  its  appearance  till  the  17th  of 
March.  Above  six  weeks  were  almost  entirely  spent  by  the 
House  of  Commons  in  receiving  the  numberless  petitions  poured 
in  from  all  quarters  against  the  tax.  For  it  was  speedily  seen 
that  the  campaign  of  1812 2  was  renewed,  and  that  the  same 
leaders,  Messrs.  Brougham  and  Baring,  had  the  management  of 
the  operations. 

"  At  first,  the  ministers  pursued  the  course  of  obstinate  silence. 
The  opposition  debated  each  petition  in  vain ;  every  minister  and 
ministerial  member  held  his  peace.  No  arguments,  no  facts,  no 
sarcasms,  no  taunts  could  rouse  them ;  no  expression  of  the  feel- 
ings of  the  country,  no  reference  to  the  anxiety  of  particular 
constituencies,  could  draw  a  word  from  the  ministers  and  their 
supporters.  At  length  it  was  perceived  that  their  antagonists 
did  not  the  less  debate,  and  that  consequently  the  scheme  had 
failed  in  its  purpose  of  stifling  discussion.  The  only  effect  of  it 
then  was,  that  all  the  debating  was  on  one  side,  and  this  both  be- 
came hurtful  to  the  government  in  the  House,  and  more  hurtful 
still  in  the  country.  They  were  forced  into  discussion  therefore ; 
and  then  began  a  scene  of  unexampled  interest,  which  lasted 
until  the  second  reading  of  the  bill.  Each  night,  at  a  little  after 
four,  commenced  the  series  of  debates,  which  lasted  until  past 
midnight.  These  were  of  infinite  variety.  Arguments  urged  by 
different  speakers ;  instances  of  oppression  and  hardship  re- 
counted ;  anecdotes  of  local  suffering  and  personal  inconvenience ; 
accounts  of  the  remarkable  passages  at  different  meetings  ;  per- 
sonal altercations  interspersed  with  more  general  matter  —  all 
filled  up  the  measure  of  the  night's  bill  of  fare ;  and  all  were  so 
1  The  resistance  to  the  orders  in  council.  —  K. 


CHAP.  II.]  MINISTERIAL  DEFEAT.  27 

blended  and  so  variegated,  that  no  one  ever  perceived  any  hour 
thus  spent  to  pass  tediously  away.  Those  not  immediately  con- 
cerned—  peers,  or  persons  belonging  to  neither  House  —  flocked 
to  the  spectacle  which  each  day  presented.  The  interest  excited 
out  of  doors  kept  pace  with  that  of  the  spectators  ;  and  those  who 
carried  on  these  active  operations  showed  a  vigor  and  constancy 
of  purpose,  an  unwearied  readiness  for  the  combat,  which  aston- 
ished while  it  animated  all  beholders.  It  is  recounted  of  tin's 
remarkable  struggle,  that  one  night  towards  the  latter  end  of  the 
period  in  question,  when,  at  a  late  hour,  the  House  having  been 
in  debate  from  four  o'clock,  one  speaker  had  resumed  his  seat, 
the  whole  members  sitting  upon  one  entire  bench  rose  at  once 
and  addressed  the  chair,  —  a  testimony  of  unabated  spirit  and 
unquenchable  animation,  which  drew  forth  the  loudest  cheers 
from  all  sides  of  the  House. 

"At  length  came  the  17th  of  March,  the  day  appointed  for 
the  division ;  but  it  was  soon  found  that  this  had  been,  with  the- 
debate,  wholly  anticipated.  The  usual  number  of  petitions,  and 
even  more,  were  poured  thickly  in  during  some  hours ;  little  or 
no  debating  took  place  upon  them  ;  unusual  anxiety  for  the  result 
of  such  long-continued  labor,  and  such  lengthened  excitement, 
kept  all  silent  and  in  suspense ;  when,  about  eleven  o'clock,  Sir 
William  Curtis,  representing  the  city  of  London,  proceeded  up 
the  House,  bearing  in  his  arms  the  petition,  which  he  presented 
without  any  remark,  of  the  great  meeting  of  the  bankers  and 
merchants,  holden  in  the  Egyptian  Hall,  and  signed  by  twelve 
thousand  persons.1  The  division  took  place  after  a  debate  that 
did  not  last  half  an  hour ;  no  one  could  indeed  be  heard  in  an 
assembly  so  impatient  for  the  decision  ;  and  by  a  majority  of 
thirty-seven  voices  the  tax  was  defeated  forever,  and  the  whole- 
some principle,  as  Mr.  Wilberforce  well  observed,  was  laid  down, 
that  war  and  income  tax  are  wedded  together." 

The  ministers  did  not  expect  this  defeat.2  They  had  calculated 
on  a  majority  of  forty.  The  opposition  expected  to  lose  by 
twenty.  It  was  not  a  party  triumph.  The  national  feeling  was 
irrc-istible.  Even  members  of  the  Tory  party  assisted  at  and 
rejoiced  in  the  issue.  Mr.  Ward  writes  from  Paris :  8  "  It  was 
amusing  enough  to  see  the  effect  the  defeat  of  our  ministry 
upon  the  question  of  the  income  tax  produced  upon  the  minds  of 
the  people  here.  Most  of  them  thought  that  the  government 
would  be  changed,  and  that  the  Whigs  would  come  in,  and  prob- 

1  This  is   a  mistake.      Sir  William  restoration  of  peace."    The  division  did 

Curtis  spoke  with  ^reat  emphasis:  "  He  not  take  place  till  the  18th. —  K. 

was  present  in  the  House  when  the  tax  -  .Mr.   llallam's  Letter   in   Homer's 

was  first   proposed,  ami    lie   heard   Mr.  Memoirs,  ii.  p.  318. 

Pitt  deelare  that  it  <liould  lie  a  \var  tax  8  Lord  Dudley's  Letters,  p.  136. 
ouly.  and  should  positively  cease  on  the 


28  HISTORY   OF   THE   PEACE.  [BOOK  L 

ably  let  loose  Napoleon  to  disturb  the  world  for  the  third  time. 
If  I  had  been  in  the  House,  I  should  have  voted  in  the  minority, 
and  yet,  I  confess,  I  am  not  sorry  it  was  a  minority.  Not  that  I 
am  by  any  means  convinced  that  the  income  tax  ought  to  have 
been  repealed,  but  because  I  think  the  ministry  wanted  beating 
upon  something,  no  great  matter  what."  Mr.  Ward  rejoiced 
because  he  sighed  for  the  return  of  his  friend  Canning  to  office. 
But  the  people  exul  ed  in  the  abolition  of  the  property  tax  upon 
no  such  narrow  ground.  They  were  suffering  ;  and  they  saw  no 
more  effectual  way  to  relieve  their  sufferings,  than  to  remove  the 
means  of  prodigal  expenditure.  There  can  be  no  doubt  that  the 
landed  interest,  of  whatever  party,  were  amongst  the  principal  in- 
struments in  removing  this  burden  from  the  land,  which  they  de- 
clared could  then  pay  no  rent.  Whether  the  decision  was  a  per- 
manently wise  one,  may  now  be  doubted.  It  was  salutary  at  the 
time,  for  it  dispelled  the  belief  that  resistance  to  taxation  was 
"  ignorant  impatience."  The  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer  took  a 
somewhat  remarkable  course  after  this  defeat.  He  voluntarily 
abandoned  the  war  duties  upon  malt  —  amounting  tfr  about 
£2,700,000.  The  decision  of  the  House  would  compel  him  to 
resort  to  the  money-market  —  in  other  words,  to  raise  a  loan  : 
"  Jt  was  of  little  consequence  that  the  loan  should  be  increased 
by  the  amount  of  the  calculated  produce  of  the  malt  duty." 
Lord  Castlereagh  said  it  was  "  a  matter  of  indifference  whether 
they  took  a  loan  of  six  or  eight  millions."  This  was  the  "  indif- 
ference "  —  the  result  of  a  long  course  of  unbounded  expense  — 
that  required  all  the  efforts  of  the  people  and  of  their  friends, 
during  many  years,  to  change  into  responsibility.  No  minister 
could  now  dare  to  speak  of  its  being  a  matter  of  indifference 
whether  he  added  two  millions  to  the  public  debt.  When  we 
look  at  this  temper  of  the  government,  we  may  excuse  the  bursts 
of  indignation  which  were  sometimes  directed  in  parliament,  even 
against  the  highest  executive  authority.  It  cannot  be  denied 
that,  in  a  time  of  very  general  distress,  the  Prince  Regent  in- 
dulged in  a  career  of  unbounded  extravagance.  An  indecent 
contempt  of  public  opinion  —  a  perseverance  in  the  indulgence 
of  sensual  appetites  and  frivolous  tastes  —  had  made  him,  "  in 
all  but  name  a  king,"  deservedly  unpopular.  The  unhappy  cir- 
cumstances of  his  domestic  position  were  in  themselves  enough 
to  estrange  from  him  much  of  the  respect  of  the  people.  To, 
counteract  the  evil  influences  of  his  past  life,  his  conduct  ought 
to  have  been  at  least  decorous,  when  he  was  called  to  the  posses- 
sion of  supreme  power ;  for  he  had  few  public  virtues  to  com- 
pensate for  the  offensiveness  of  his  private  example.  His  duties 
to  the  State  —  the  mere  routine  of  the  kingly  office  —  were  in- 
variably performed  with  tardiness  and  reluctance.  Without  any 


CHAP.  II.]  THE  PRINCE  REGEXT.  29 

strength  of  character  but  that  which  proceeded  from  his  irresist- 
ible craving  for  ease  and  indulgence,  his  best  qualities  were  dis- 
torted into  effeminate  vices.  The  constitutional  bravery  of  his 
house  forsook  him,  and  he  became  a  moral  coward,  whom  his 
official  servants  had  to  govern  as  a  petted  child.  Bred  up  amongst 
Whig  friends  and  flatterers,  he  at  once  professed  respect  for  the 
democratic  parts  of  the  constitution,  with  an  instinctive  hatred 
of  public  opinion.  The  feebleness  of  his  intellect,  the  debasing 
character  of  his  passions,  made  him  miserable  in  the  unequal  con- 
test between  his  sense  of  duty  and  his  desires.  He  was  subdued 
into  the  perfect  Sybarite,  and  his  people  despised  him.  Men 
every  where  spoke  out;  and  it  was  not  surprising  that  the  public 
voice  was  echoed  in  the  House  of  Commons.  When  opinions 
there  found  vent,  there  was  abundant  sympathy  out  of  doors  to 
satisfy  one  daring  orator  for  the  coldness  of  his  party.  Sir  S. 
Romilly  writes  on  the  20th  March : 1  "  A  motion  of  disapproba- 
tion of  the  increase  which  has  lately  been  made  of  the  salary  of 
secretary  to  the  admiralty  in.  time  of  peace,  from  £-'>000  to  £4000 
a  year,  was  rejected  by  a  majority  of  29  ;  there  being  for  the 
motion  130,  and  against  it  15!).  In  the  course  of  the  deba*te  upon 
it,  Brougham,  who  supported  the  motion,  made  a  violent  attack 
upon  the  Regent,  whom  he  described  as  devoted,  in  the  recesses 
of  his  palace,  to  the  most  vicious  pleasures,  a»d  callous  to  the 
distresses  and  sufferings  of  others,  in  terms  which  would  not  have 
been  too  strong  to  have  described  the  latter  days  of  Tiberius. 
Several  persons  who  would  have  voted  for  the  motion  were  so 
disgusted  that  they  went  away  without  voting ;  and  more,  who 
wished  for  some  tolerable  pretext  for  not  voting  against  ministers, 
and  who  on  this  occasion  could  not  vote  with  them,  availed  them- 
selves of  this  excuse,  and  went  away  too ;  and  it  is  generally 
believed  that,  but  for  this  speech  of  Brougham's,  the  ministers 
would  have  been  again  in  a  minority.  If  th;s  had  happened, 
many  persons  believe,  or  profess  to  believe,  that  the  ministers 
would  have  been  turned  out.  Poor  Brougham  is  loaded  with 
the  reproaches  of  his  friends  ;  and  many  of  them  who  are  most 
impatient  to  get  into  office,  look  upon  him  as  the  only  cause  that 
they  are  still  destined  to  labor  on  in  an  unprofitable  opposition. 
I  have  no  doubt  that,  whatever  had  been  the  division,  the  minis- 
ters would  still  have  continued  in  office.  But  it  is  not  the  less 
true  that  Brougham's  speech  was  very  injudicious,  as  well  as  very 
unjust ;  for,  with  all  the  Prince's  faults,  and  they  are  great  enough, 
it  is  absurd  to  speak  of  him  as  if  he  were  one  of  the  most  sen- 
sual and  unfeeling  tyrants  that  ever  disgraced  a  throne." 

It  does  not  appear  in  the  imperfect  reports  of  the  parliamen- 
tary debates,  that  the  Prince  Regent  was  spoken  of  as  strongly  as 
i  Romilly's  Life,  iii.  p.  236. 


30  HISTORY  OF  THE  PEACE..  [BOOK  I. 

Romilly  represents.  The  language  of  Mr.  Brougham  was  indeed 
described  by  Air.  Wellesley  Pole  to  be  "  such  language  as  he 
had  never  listened  to  in  that  House  before  "  —  "  such  expres- 
sions as  in  his  life  he  had  never  before  heard  any  m;m  utter  who 
attempted  to  call  himself  a  friend  to  the  House  of  Brunswick." 
And  yet  Sir  Robert  Heron  had,  on  the  12th  of  February  pre- 
vious, spoken  in  almost  as  unmeasured  terms  of  "  royal  extrava- 
gance ;  "  and  there  was  "  laughter  "  in  that  House  when  he  thus 
described  the  aspect  of  the  court  i1  "You  have  assumed  a  most 
imposing  situation ;  your  armies  have  expelled  one  despot  and 
set  up  another ;  you  have  a  prince  who  has  so  much  dignity,  that 
he  expends  as  great  a  sum  on  a  thatched  cottage  as  another  mon- 
arch would  on  a  palace  ;  so  dignified  is  he,  so  magnificent  are  his 
ideas,  that  he  cannot  endure  to  see  the  same  furniture  in  his 
house  for  two  successive  years  ;  he  is  such  a  friend  to  trade,  that 
he  cannot  give  less  than  eight  hundred  guineas  for  a  clock ;  and 
such  a  protector  is  he  of  the  arts,  that  he  pays  six  thousand  pounds 
for  a  Chinese  cabinet."  And  then  Sir  Robert  Heron  talked  of 
"  the  principal  causes  of  the  French  Revolution."  Again,  on 
the  4th  March,  Mr.  Methuen,  who  a  month  before  had  seconded 
the  ministerial  address,  said,  that,  "  had  he  the  good  fortune  to 
be  one  of  the  constitutional  advisers  of  the  Crown,  he  would  go 
boldly  forward  and  say  —  You  must  keep  your  faith  with  the 
people,  by  abstaining  from  an  extravagance  which  inexperience 
cannot  palliate,  and  which  poverty  cannot  justify."  The  plain 
speaking  of  Mr.  Brougham  was  not,  therefore,  without  precedent. 
But,  however  the  Whig  party  may  have  felt  themselves  compro- 
mised, however  the  Tory  party  might  have  denounced  any  allu- 
sion to  the  personal  character  of  him  who  exercised  the  sover- 
eign attributes,  we  are  not  sure  that  the  public  interests  were 
not  truly  served  by  one  who  fearlessly  pointed  out  those  "  who,2 
in  utter  disregard  of  the  feelings  of  an  oppressed  and  insulted 
nation,  proceeded  from  one  wasteful  expenditure  to  another ; 
who  decorated  and  crowded  their  houses  with  the  splendid  results 
of  their  extravagance ;  who  associated  with  the  most  profligate 
of  human  beings  ;  who,  when  the  jails  were  filled  with  wretches, 
could  not  suspend  for  a  moment  their  thoughtless  amusements,  to 
end  the  sad  suspense  between  life  and  death."  8  We  may  now, 
without  any  violation  of  "  the  duty  and  the  loyalty  we  owe,"  think 
it  as  fitting  that  public  opinion  should  penetrate  a  palace,  through 

1  Hansard,  xxxii.  p.  409.  convicted   at   the   December   sessions. 

2  Ibid,  xxxiii.  p.  496.  "  The  difficulty  and  inconvenience  of 
8  This  subject  was  debated  on   the    assembling   the  law  officers  at  Brijjh- 

18th    March,  two    nights    before    Mr.  ton,"    and   "the   indisposition    of   the 

Brougham's  offensive  speech,  when  it  Prince    Recent,"  —  his  royal  highness 

appeared   th;it  there   were    fifty-eight  was   suffering  from   gout, —  were   the 

persons  under  sentence    of   deatli   in  reasons  assigned  for  this  neglect, 
iiewgate,  many  of  whom  had  been 


CHAP.  II.]      EXPENSES  OF  THE  ROYAL  FAMILY.  31 

the  solemnly  uttered  censure  of  representatives  of  the  people,  as 
that  the  voice  of  praise  only  should  reach  the  ears  of  princes. 
When  the  mightiest  of  the  earth  proclaim  aloud  that  they  live 
for  their  own  pleasures  alone,  it  is  time  that  under  a  free  gov- 
ernment there  should  be  some  authoritative  demonstration,  to 
avert  the  contagion  of  the  sensualist's  example,  if  not  to  pale  his 
cheek  with  words  almost  as  fearful  as  those  which  suspended  the 
revelry  in  the  halls  of  Belshazzar.  From  the  House  of  Com- 
mons the  voice  of  the  people  might  go  forth  without  the  dread  of 
ex-officio  informations,  —  the  common  shield  of  power  in  the  days 
of  the  regency.  "  Twopenny  Post-bags  " 1  might  make  the  mob 
of  idle  readers  of  all  parties  laugh  at  "  Fum  and  Hum,"  and 
"  The  Marchesa,"  and  "  The  Royal  Dandy ; "  but  there  are  sea- 
sons when  the  people  should  be  made  thoughtful,  and  this  was 
especially  one  of  those  seasons.  The  danger  of  fostering  discon- 
tent was  small,  when  compared  with  the  danger  of  suffering  those 
who  ought  to  live  for  example,  to  believe  that  they  were  wholly 
above  the  control  of  opinion.  The  damage  to  the  expectants  of 
office,  on  this  particular  occasion,  may  be  laid  aside,  with  many 
similar  conventionalities,  as  a  matter  in  which  the  nation  is  now, 
as  it  was  then,  wholly  uninterested. 

In  the  session  of  1815  the  excess  upon  the  civil  list  —  that 
is,  the  amount  spent  in  the  support  of  the  royal  state  Ciyilligt 
and  establishments,  beyond  the  sum  set  aside  by  par- 
liament—  was  no  less  than  £530,000.  In  1816  it  was  men- 
tioned that  there  was  a  present  debt  of  £277,000  upon  the 
civil  list,  but  that  this  arrear  would  be  provided  for  out  of  the 
droits  of  the  crown.  The  annual  grant  to  the  crown,  instead  of 
the  old  "  hereditary  revenue,"  was  £800,000.  Out  of  this  sum 
were  to  be  paid  the  salaries  of  the  jii'lges  of  the  realm,  the  ex- 
penses of  foreign  ministers  and  consuls,  the  salaries  of  certain 
high  officers  of  state,  besides  other  matters  that  did  not  pertain 
to  the'  personal  expenses  of  royalty.  The  average  expenditure 
of  seven  years  up  to  1811  had  been  £1,103,000.  In  1815  it 
was  £1,480,000,  having  rapidly  increased  since  1811.  The  ne- 
cessity for  two  royal  establishments  —  that  of  the  afflicted  King 
at  Windsor,  and  that  of  the  Ilegent —  involved  some  additional 
expense  ;  but  there  was  a  source  of  expense  far  heyond  ministe- 
rial estimates  and  parliamentary  resolutions.  A  bill  was  brought 
in  by  the  ministry  for  the  better  regulation  of  the  civil  list ;  and 
during  its  progress  much  anxious  discussion  took  place.  It  ap- 
peared that  the  droits  of  the  crown,  and  of  the  admiralty,  were 
constantly  applied  in  aid  of  the  civil  list,  and  that  parliament  was 
still  called  upon  to  provide  a  large  arrear.  It  was  contended  that 
parliament  ought  to  take  the  appropriation  of  these  convenient 
i  See  Moore's  Poetical  Works. 


32  HISTORY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [Boos  I. 

funds  into  its  own  hands,  so  that  the  nation  should  be  cognizant 
of  the  amount  that  went  in  aid  of  the  civil-list  revenue.  The 
ministerial  bill  for  the  regulation  of  this  expenditure,  which  was 
undoubtedly  a  step  in  reform,  was  carried.  In  the  House  of 
Lords  a  motion  of  Earl  Grosvenor,  "  that  a  committee  be  ap- 
pointed to  consider  what  places  and  offices  m:iy  be  abolished, 
consistent  with  the  public  safety,''  was  negatived  by  a  large 
majority. 

The  debates  upon  the  army  estimates,  which  eventually  caused 
some  reduction  —  the  rejection  of  the  property  tax  —  the  search- 
ing inquiry  into  the  civil  list,  —  the  agitation  of  the  question  of 
sinecure  offices —  were  indications  of  the  feeling  which  any  gov- 
ernment would  have  to  encounter  that  did  not  resolutely  deter- 
mine that  a  season  of  peace  should  be  a  season  of  economy. 
Upon  these  points  the  tone  of  public  opinion  was  decided.  It  was 
not  a  factious,  it  was  not  a  disloyal  tone.  The  nation  could  dis- 
criminate between  grants  for  worthy  and  grants  for  disreputable 
objects.  When  the  details  of  the  civil  list  exh  bited  items  of 
wanton  and  ridiculous  luxury,  the  members  of  the  administration 
themselves  were  pained  and  humiliated.  \Vhen  the  same  min- 
isters proposed  the  magnificent  establishment  for  the  Princess 
Charlotte  and  Prince  Leopold,  upon  their  marriage,  not  a  dissen- 
tient voice  was  heard  in  parliament ;  the  nation  was  unanimous 
in  the  wish  to  be  liberal  almost  to  profusion.  For  why  ?  The 
nation  saw  in  this  marriage  of  the  presumptive  heiress  of  the 
crown  —  a  marriage  of  affection  —  some  assured  hope  that  pub- 
lic duties  might  be  fitly  learned  in  the  serenity  of  domestic  hap- 
piness. The  private  virtues  were  felt  to  be  the  best  preparation 
for  the  possession  of  sovereign  power.  The  idea  of  a  patriot 
queen  discharging  all  her  high  functions  with  steady  alacrity, 
confident  in  the  affections  of  her  people,  of  simple  habits,  of  re- 
fined and  intellectual  tastes,  her  throne  sanctified  by  the  attributes 
of  womanly  affection,  —  sucli  hopes  were  something  to  console  the 
nation  for  the  present  endurance  of  authority  that  claimed  only 
"  mouth-honor,"  w  ithout  love  or  respect.  The  marriage  of  the 
jj^-p  of  Princess  Charlotte  was  hailed  as  a  public  blessing.  It 
the  Princess  took  place  at  Carlton  House,  on  the  evening  of  the  2d 
Charlotte.  Q^  ^j^  There  was  perfect  unanimity  in  the  House 
of  Commons  as  to  the  vote  for  the  establishment  of  the  royal 
pair :  £oO,000  a  year  was  the  large  sum  determined  on.  with  an 
income  of  £-10,000  a  year  to  the  Prin.-e  of  Saxe  Coburg,  should 
his  serene  highness  survive  the  Princess  Charlotte.  The  most 
ample  testimony  was  given  in  both  Houses  to  the  excellent  char- 
acter of  the  prince  who  was  thus  united  to  the  presumptive  heir- 
ess of  the  British  crown. 


CHAP.  III.l  AGRICULTURE.  33 


CHAPTER   III. 

WHEN  the  government,  in  the  name  of  the  Prince  Regent,  in- 
formed parliament  that  "  the  manufactures,  commerce, 
and  revenue  of  the  United  Kingdom  were  in  a  flour- 
ishing condition,"  the  exception  of  agriculture  was  a  sufficient 
announcement  that  the  cry  of  "  distress  "  was  near  at  hand. 

The  history  of  "  agricultural  distress  "  is  the  history  of  agri- 
cultural abundance.  Whenever  Providence,  through  the  bless- 
ing of  genial  seasons,  fills  the  nation's  stores  with  plenteous- 
nes*,  then,  and  then  only,  has  the  cry  of  ruin  to  the  cultivator 
been  proclaimed  as  the  one  great  evil  for  legislation  to  redress. 
It  was  ever  so.  Pepys,  in  his  diary  of  January,  1667-8,  writes :  * 
"  Here  they  did  talk  much  of  the  present  •  cheapness  of  corn, 
even  to  a  miracle ;  so  as  their  farmers  can  pay  no  rent,  but 
do  fling  up  their  lands."  There  had  been  a  cycle  of  scarcity 
from  1658  to  1664,  during  which  seven  years  the  average  price 
of  wheat  was  about  57s.  a  quarter.2  There  was  a  cycle  of 
plenty  from  1665  to  1671,  during  which  seven  years  the  aver- 
age price  of  wheat  was  about  36s.  per  quarter.  The  obvious 
remedy  for  this  excess  in  the  disposable  produce  of  one  country, 
was  to  export  the  corn  to  other  countries  which  had  not  been 
equally  impoverished  by  abundance.  Pepys,  a  shrewd  man  of 
business,  saw  the  remedy :  "  Farmers  can  pay  no  rent,  but  do 
fling  up  their  lands,  and  would  pay  in  corn:  but  our  gentry 
are  grown  so  ignorant  in  everything  of  good  husbandry,  that 
they  know  not  how  to  bestow  this  corn ;  which,  did  they  under- 
stand but  a  little  trade,  they  would  be  able  to  join  together  and 
know  what  markets  there  are  abroad,  and  send  it  thither,  and 
thereby  ease  their  tenants,  and  be  able  to  pay  themselves."  But 
the  natural  law  of  commercial  intercourse  —  the  law  by  which 
the  bounty  of  the  All-giver  would  be  distributed  amongst  his 
universal  family,  so  as  to  compensate  for  the  inequalities  of  soil 
and  climate  —  this  law  was  despised  as  long  ago  as  the  time  of 
Charles  II.  by  the  conventional  law-makers,  who  were  -'grown 
so  ignorant  in  everything  of  good  husbandry,"  and  did  not  under- 
stand even  "  a  little  trade."  To  remedy  the  evil  of  cheapness,  they 

1  Pepys's  Diary,  iv.  p.  1.  a  Eton  Tables 

VOL.  u.  3 


34  HISTORY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [Boos  L 

made  the  famous  corn-law  of  1670,  which  imposed  duties  on  the 
importation  of  grain,  amounting  to  prohibition.  The  restrictions 
upon  exportation  were  removed :  wheat  might  be  exported  upon 
the  payment  of  a  shilling  per  quarter  customs-duty.  But  impor- 
tation was  not  to  be  free  till  the  price  of  wheat  had  reached  8'>*. 
per  quarter ;  when  it  was  at  53s.  4rf.,  a  duty  of  1 6*.  was  to  be 
paid  ;  when  above  that  price  and  under  the  mysterious  compen- 
sation price  of  80s.,  a  duty  of  8*.  was  to  be  paid.  The  more  fa- 
mous corn-law  of  1815  was  but  a  copy  of  the  corn-law  of  1670. 
Amidst  the  best  and  the  worst  species  of  opposition  —  the  power 
of  argument  and  the  weakness  of  tumult  —  a  bill  was  in  1815 
hurried  through  parliament,  which  absolutely  closed  the  ports  till 
the  price  of  wheat  rose  to  80s.  After  the  passing  of  the  corn- 
law  of  1 670  there  was  as  much  "  agricultural  distress  "  as  be- 
fore, till  dearth  came  to  the  relief  of  the  suffering  cultivator. 
Farms  were  thrown  up,  rents  were  reduced.  In  1673,  in  spite 
of  the  prohibitory  laws  against  importation,  and  the  unlimited 
freedom  of  exportation,  wheat  was  as  low  as  35s.1  In  1674  there 
came  the  landlord's  blessing  of  a  bad  harvest,  and  the  price  of 
wheat  rose  to  64s.  The  cycle  of  scarcity  had  come  round.  It 
was  precisely  the  same  after  the  corn-law  of  1815.  It  was 
passed  during  a  season  of  wonderful  abundance.  It  produced  the 
immediate  good  to  the  landed  interest  of  preventing  the  abun- 
dant supply  being  increased  by  importation  ;  but  the  effect  wlii  -h 
it  produced  to  the  nation  was  to  dry  up  the  resources  in  years 
of  scarcity  which  the  foresight  of  other  countries  might  have 
provided.  The  war-and-famine  price  of  1812  was  again  reached 
in  the  latter  part  of  1816,  in  1817,  and  1818.  The  golden  days 
of  the  deity  that  is  found  in  no  mythology  —  the  anti-Ceres 
—  were  returned.  But  the  people  were  starving.  Misery  and 
insurrection  filled  the  land. 

It  may  be  convenient  at  this  place  if  we  refer  to  the  changes 
which  were  produced  by  the  corn-law  of  1815,  and  briefly  exhib-t 
the  arguments  by  which  it  was  maintained  or  opposed. 

In  1814,  the  report  of  a  select  committee  of  the  House  of  Com 
mons  presented  in  1813  —  of  which  committee  Sir  Henry  Par- 
nell  was  chairman  —  was  adopted  as  the  basis  of  certain  resolu- 
tions then  debated.  The  first  of  the  resolutions  declared,  "  that 
it  is  expedient  that  the  exportation  of  corn,  grain,  meal,  malt, 
and  flour,  from  any  part  of  the  United  Kingdom,  should  be  per- 
mitted at  all  times,  without  the  payment  of  any  duty,  and  without 
receiving  any  bounty  whatever."  This  resolution  was  carried  iti 
the  same  year,  and  passed  into  law.  With  r.-gard  to  the  impor- 
tation of  corn,  it  was  proposed,  in  resolutions  laid  upon  the  table 
in  1813,  that  till  wheat  should  be  105s.  ~2d.  a.  quarter,  and  other 
1  Boger  Coke,  quoted  in  Tooke's  History  of  Prices,  i.  p.  24. 


CHAP.  III.]    DISCUSSIONS  ON  THE  CORN-LAWS.  35 

grain  in  the  same  proportion,  the  importation  should  be  subject 
to  a  prohibitory  duty.  This  proposed  sum  was,  in  1814,  reduced 
to  84s.,  when  \vhe;it  might  be  admitted  upon  payment  of  2s.  6</. 
In  1791  the  nominal-duty  price  was  fixed  at  54s.;  in  1804,  at 
66s.  In  offering  objections  of  detail  to  these  resolutions,  Mr. 
Rose,  a  member  of  the  government,1  "  took  it  for  granted  that  no 
one  now  entertains  the  remotest  idea  of  an  entirely  free  trade 
in  corn."  The  reasoning  of  those  who  call  themselves  advocates 
of  free  trade  fully  justified  his  belief.  Sir  Henry  Parnell 2  "  had 
always  avowed  himself  the  friend  of  a  free  trade.  ...  If  the 
corn  and  commodities  of  this  country  were  on  a  level  with  those 
of  the  rest  of  Europe,  he  should  then  think  it  unnecessary  to  in- 
troduce an  artificial  system.  But  the  price  of  corn  in  England 
had  risen  higher  than  in  any  other  country  in  Europe,  in  conse- 
quence of  the  interruption  of  late  years  of  our  communication 
with  the  continent,  and  formed  an  exception  to  the  general  rule." 
That  is  to  say,  as  the  war  of  a  quarter  of  a  century  had  prevented 
importation  under  ordinary  circumstances,  and  consequently 
raised  the  price  of  the  people's  food  to  an  inordinate  height,  it 
was  necessary  to  perpetuate  the  war  system  upon  the  return  of 
peace  Mr.  Huskissou,  as  might  be  expected,  was  somewhat 
more  logical  in  his  advocacy  of  a  high  duty  upon  importation. 
He  had  proposed  a  sliding  scale,  under  which  the  free-importa- 
tion price  was  87s.,  and  his  argument  was,8  that  ''  the  whole  of 
our  commercial  and  economical  system  was  a  system  of  artificial 
expedients.  If  our  other  regulations  with  regard  to  the  price  of 
commodities  stood  upon  the  basis  of  the  prini-iples  of  free  trade, 
then  there  could  be  no  possible  olijection  to  leaving  our  agricul- 
tural productions  to  find  their  own  level.  But,  so  long  as  our 
commerce  and  manufactures  were  encouraged  and  forced  by  pro- 
tections, by  bounties,  and  by  restraints  on  importation  from 
abroad,  he  saw  no  reason  why  the  laws  relating  to  the  growth 
of  corn  should  alone  form  an  exception  to  this  general  system  in 
almost  all  other  respects."  On  the  other  hand,  those  who 
represented  the  commercial  interests  were  not  sufficiently  in 
advance  of  their  time  to  deprecate  the  general  system  of  pro- 
tections and  bounties  for  whirh  they  had  so  long  clamored  ;  but 
they  saw  the  natural  resources  of  commerce  that  would  be  opened 
by  a  free  trade  in  corn,  and  the  evils  of  a  restricted  trade.  Mr. 
Phillips  said :  *  "  If  a  free  trade  in  grain  were  to  be  allowed,  it 
would  lead  to  an  improvement  of  our  general  commerce.  This 
increase  of  commerce  would  give  rise  to  an  increase  of  national 
wealth,  and  consequently  an  im-rease  of  population,  which  in  the 
end  would  afford  an  additional  encouragement  to  agriculture." 

i  Hansard,  xxvii.  p.  694.  2  ibid.  p.  612. 

8  Huskisson's  Speeches,  i.  p.  296.  *  Hausard,  xxvii.  p.  1094. 


86  HISTORY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [Boos  I. 

Mr.  Baring,  ( now  Lord  Ashburton,)  in  reply  to  the  argument 
that  the  high  duties  on  importation  would  make  the  price  of 
bread  steady,  contended1  that  "  steady  prices  were  never  produced 
by  restriction.  Apply  the  doctrine  of  restriction  to  any  one 
county  in  England,  and  it  would  be  found  that  the  doing  so 
would  not  have  the  effect  of  steadying  the  prices  in  that  partic- 
ular county ;  on  the  contrary,  the  bread  would  be  alternately 
high  and  low,  according  as  there  was  a  good  or  bad  harvest  in 
that  particular  spot ;  deprived,  as  it  would  be,  of  intercourse 
with  the  rest  of  the  kingdom.  As  the  whole  of  England  was  to 
any  particular  county  in  England  in  this  respect,  such  exactly 
was  the  whole  of  Europe  as  to  England." 

The  Corn  Bill  of  1814  was  opposed  by  very  numerous  peti- 
tions ;  and  on  this  account,  and  also  with  reference  to  the  lateness 
of  the  session,  the  bill  was  thrown  out.  But  in  the  spring  of 
1815  the  measure  was  hurried  through  the  House,  in  spite  of 
the  most  earnest  and  solemn  petitions  of  great  bodies  of  the  com- 
mercial and  manufacturing  interests  throughout  the  country. 
The  average  price  of  wheat  was  under  60*.  a  quarter ;  if  it  rose 
to  66s.,  the  ports  would  be  opened.  The  excitement  was  uni- 
versal. The  landlords  and  farmers  were  filled  with  terror,  for 
the  continental  markets  were  open.  The  unreflecting  multi- 
tudes of  the  capital  and  in  some  manufacturing  districts  were 
ready  for  violence.  The  political  economists  were  divided  in 
their  opinions.  The  lowest  point  at  which  importation  could 
take  place  was  finally  fixed  at  80s.,  by  a  large  majority  of  both 
Houses,  with  little  that  could  be  called  discussion.  Argument 
was  exhausted  in  1814. 

It  was  under  the  corn-law  of  1815,  a  year  after  its  hasty  en- 
actment, that  the  majority  of  the  landed  interest  came  to  parlia- 
ment to  ask  for  the  remission  of  peculiar  burdens,  and  to  de- 
mand fresh  protection.  They  had  learnt  nothing  from  the  sol- 
emn protest  against  that  law  which  some  of  the  most  eminent 
and  the  most  wealthy  of  the  peers  had  inscribed  in  their  journals. 
It  was  in  vain  that  the  greatest  amongst  landed  proprietors  — 
Buckingham,  Carlisle,  Devonshire,  Spencer  —  the  most  eminent, 
amongst  statesmen  —  Grey,  Grenville,  Wellesley  —  had  re- 
corded these  memorable  words  : 2  "  We  cannot  persuade  ourselves 
that  this  law  will  ever  contribute  to  produce  plenty,  cheapness, 
or  steadiness  of  price.  So  long  as  it  operates  at  all,  its  effects 
must  be  the  opposite  of  these.  Monopoly  is  the  parent  of  scar- 
city, of  dearuess,  and  of  uncertainty.  To  cut  off  any  of  the 
sources  of  supply,  can  only  tend  to  lessen  its  abundance  ;  to  close 
against  ourselves  the  cheapest  market  for  any  commodity,  must 
enhance  the  price  at  which  we  purchase  it ;  and  to  confine  the 
i  Hansard,  xxvii.  p.  1100.  a  Protest.  Hansard,  xxx.  p.  263. 


CHAP.  III.]  EFFECTS  OF   CORN-LAWS.  37 

consumer  of  corn  to  the  produce  of  his  own  country,  is  to  refuse 
to  ourselves  the  benefit  of  that  provision  which  Providence  itself 
has  made  for  equalizing  to  man  the  variations  of  season  and  of 
climate."  The  landed  interest  of  1816  could  not  foresee  that, 
within  five  years,  the  very  House  of  Commons  that  had  passed 
the  corn-law  of  1815,  would  receive  from  one  of  its  own  commit- 
tees a  report,  drawn  up  by  an  iconoclast  minister  of  state,  that 
should  thus  pull  down  the  image  of  clay  which  he  himself  had 
assisted  them  to  set  up  : l  "  This  system  is  certainly  liable  to  sud- 
den alterations,  of  which  the  effect  may  be  at  one  time  to  reduce 
prices,  already  low,  lower  than  they  would  probably  have  been 
under  a  state  of  free  trade,  and  at  another  unnecessarily  to  en- 
hance prices  already  high  ;  to  aggravate  the  evils  of  scarcity,  and 
to  render  more  severe  the  depression  of  prices  from  abundance. 
On  the  one  hand,  it  deceives  the  grower  with  the  false  hope  of  a 
monopoly,  and  by  its  occasional  interruption  may  lead  to  conse- 
quences which  deprive  him  of  the  benefits  of  that  monopoly, 
when  most  wanted  ;  on  the  other  hand,  it  holds  out  to  the  coun- 
try the  prospect  of  an  occasional  free  trade,  but  so  regulated 
and  desultory  as  to  baffle  the  calculations  and  unsettle  the  trans- 
actions both  of  the  grower  and  of  the  dealer  at  home  —  to  de- 
prive the  consumer  of  most  of  the  benefits  of  such  a  trade,  and 
to  involve  the  merchant  in  more  than  the  ordinary  risks  of  mer- 
cantile speculation.  It  exposes  the  markets  of  the  country 
either  to  be  occasionally  overwhelmed  with  an  inundation  of 
foreign  corn,  altogether  disproportionate  to  its  wants,  or  in  the 
event  of  any  considerable  deficiency  in  our  own  harvest,  it  cre- 
ates a  sudden  competition  on  the  continent,  by  the  effect  of  which 
the  prices  (here  are  rapidly  and  unnecessarily  raised  against  our- 
selves. But  the  inconvenient  operation  of  the  present  corn-law, 
which  appears  to  be  less  the  consequence  of  the  quantity  of  for- 
eign grain  brought  into  this  country,  upon  an  average  of  years, 
than  of  the  manner  in  which  that  grain  is  introduced,  is  not 
confined  to  great  fluctuations  in  price,  and  consequent  embarrass- 
ment both  to  the  grower  and  the  consumer ;  for  the  occasional 
prohibition  of  import  has  also  a  direct  tendency  to  contract  the 
extent  of  our  commercial  dealings  with  other  states,  and  to  ex- 
cite in  the  rulers  of  those  states  a  spirit  of  permanent  exclusion 
against  the  productions  or  manufactures  of  this  country  and  its 
colonies.  In  this  conflict  of  retaliatory  exclusion,  injurious  to 
both,  the  two  parties,  however,  are  not  upon  an  equal  footing;  on 
our  part,  prohibition  must  yield  to  the  wants  of  the  people  ;  on 
the  other  side,  there  is  no  such  overruling  necessity.  And  inas- 
much as  reciprocity  of  demand  is  the  foundation  of  all  means  of 

i  Report  of  the  Select  Committee  of     pressed    State    of   Agriculture,   1821: 
the  House  of  Commons   on   the  De-    ascribed  to  AJr.  Huskis.sou. 

428546 


88  HISTOEY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [Boon  L 

payment,  a  large  and  sudden  influx  of  corn  might,  under  these 
circumstance?,  excite  a  temporary  derangement  of  the  course  of 
exchange  ;  the  effects  of  which,  after  the  resumption  of  cash-pay- 
ments, might  lead  to  a  drain  of  specie  from  the  Bank,  the  conse- 
quent contraction  of  its  circulation,  a  panic  among  the  country 
banks  —  all  aggravating  the  distress  of  a  public  dearth,  as  has 
been  experienced  at  former  periods  of  scarcity." 

This  was  at  once  judgment  and  prophecy.  But  the  landed 
interest  of  1816  had  but  one  remedy  for  every  evil  —  unequal 
remission  of  taxation  conjoined  with  protection.  They  desired 
themselves  to  pay  less  to  the  state  than  their  fellow-subjects  ; 
they  required  the  state  to  limit  their  fellow-subjects  to  that  ex- 
clusive market  for  the  necessaries  of  life  which  should  dry  up  the 
sources  of  profitable  industry,  and  thus  make  their  taxation 
doubly  burdensome.  On  the  7th  March,  Mr.  Western  laid  upon 
the  table  of  the  House  a  series  of  fourteen  resolutions,  which  de- 
clared the  "  unexampled  distress  "  of  those  whose  capitals  are 
employed  in  agriculture ;  the  danger  of  the  continuance  of  such 
distress  ;  the  insufficient  demand  for  the  produce  of  agriculture, 
so  as  to  cover  the  heavy  charges  and  burdens  upon  it ;  and  the 
necessity  for  reducing  those  burdens  —  taxes,  tithes,  and  poor- 
rates.  The  resolutions  then  demanded  the  repeal  of  so  much  of 
the  act  of  1815  as  should  allow  foreign  corn  to  be  warehoused, 
so  that  only  British  corn  should  be  stored  ;  and  urged  an  advance 
of  money  by  the  government  to  such  individuals  as  might  be 
inclined  to  buy  up  our  native  produce.  The  principle  upon 
which  all  this  was  advocated  was  a  sufficiently  broad  one :  "  That 
excessive  taxation  renders  it  necessary  to  give  protection  to  all 
articles  the  produce  of  our  own  soil,  against  similar  articles  the 
growth  of  foreign  countries,  not  subject  to  the  same  burdens  ; " 
and  "  that  it  is  therefore  expedient  to  impose  additional  duties 
and  restrictions  on  the  importation  of  all  articles  the  produce  of 
foreign  agriculture."  It  is  a  remarkable  example  of  the  power 
of  the  landed  interest  in  the  House  of  Commons,  that  these 
assertions  and  unconditional  demands  were  received,  not  only 
with  tolerance,  but  respect.  The  day-spring  of  economical  pol- 
itics had  scarcely  yet  dawned.  Amongst  the  representatives 
of  the  people,  Mr.  Huskisson  was  all  sympathy  with  the  mover 
of  these  resolutions,  "  whom  l  he  would  venture  to  call  his  hon- 
orable friend."  Mr.  Brougham,  although  opposed  to  bounties 
upon  exportation,  and  the  exclusion  of  foreign  corn  from  our 
warehouses,  spoke  approvingly  of  the  corn-law  of  1815  as  ''poli- 
tic,2 at  the  least  as  a  palliative,  or  as  affording  the  means  of  car- 
rying the  country  through  difficulties,  the  greatest  pressure  of 
which  we  may  hope  will  only  prove  temporary."  This  temper, 

1  Huskisson's  Speeches,  i.  p.  312.  2  Brougham's  Speeches,  i.  p.  533. 


CHAP.  III.]    DISTRESS   OF  THE  AGRICULTURISTS.  39 

even  amidst  men  not  essentially  supporters  of  class  interests, 
will  not  be  wondered  at  when  we  consider  the  preponderating 
power  of  landed  property  in  the  House  of  Commons  at  that 
time.  The  strength  either  of  the  ministry  or  the  opposition  es- 
sentially depended  upon  the  numerical  force  of  the  country  gen- 
tlemen. The  com  mere  al  and  manufacturing  interests  were  most 
imperfectly  represented.  The  landed  aristocracy  had  retained 
official  power,  in  association  with  a  few  "  clerkly  "  workers,  from 
the  earliest  feudal  times.  The  admission  of  a  merchant  to  the 
councils  of  the  sovereign  would  have  been  deemed  pollution. 
The  mill-owners  had  carried  us  through  the  war;  yet  as  a  polit- 
ical body  they  were  without  influence,  almost  without  a  voice. 
There  was  no  one  in  the  House  of  Commons  who  had  either  the 
courage  or  the  ability  to  probe  the  wounds  of  the  agricultural  in- 
terests, which  were  thus  paraded  before  the  nation. 

The  distress  of  the  agriculturists  was  thus  stated,  in  1816,  in 
general  terms,  by  Mr.  Western : l  "  Between  two  and  three  years 
ago,  agriculture  was  in  a  flourishing  and  prosperous  state  ;  and 
yet,  within  the  short  period  which  has  since  elapsed,  thousands 
have  been  already  ruined,  and  destitution  seems  to  impend 
over  the  property  of  all  those  whose  capital  is  engaged  in 
the  cultivation  of  the  soil."  The  causes  assigned  by  him  were 
excessive  taxation,  the  reduction  of  the  paper  currency,  tithes, 
poor-rates.  "  Yet,  in  spite  of  all  these  burdens,  up  to  the  mid- 
dle of  1813,  agriculture  did  sustain  them,  and  under  the  weight 
of  their  united  pressure  continued  to  make  most  rapid  advances." 
But  the  chief  cause,  as  most  correctly  stated  by  Mr.  Western, 
was  "  a  redundant  supply  in  the  markets,  a  supply  considerably 
beyond  the  demand,  and  that  created  chiefly  by  the  produce  of 
our  own  agriculture."  With  equal  correctness  did  the  speaker 
add :  "'  It  is  perfectly  well  known  that  if  there  is  a  small  defi- 
ciency of  supply,  the  price  will  rise  in  a  ratio  far  beyond  any  pro- 
portion of  sucli  deficiency;  the  effect,  indeed,  is  almost  incalcula- 
ble ;  so  likewise,  in  a  surplus  of  supply  beyond  demand,  the  price 
will  fall  in  a  ratio  exceeding  almost  tenfold  the  amount  of  such 
surplus."  And  yet,  with  this  knowledge  of  general  principles, 
the  same  speaker  asserts  that  in  the  period  when  "  agriculture 
was  in  a  flourishing  and  prosperous  state,"  the  profits  of  agricult- 
ure were  not  large.  Let  us  endeavor  to  elucidate  his  position, 
that  "if  there  is  a  small  deficiency  of  supply,  the  price  will  rise 
in  a  ratio  far  beyond  any  proportion  of  such  deficiency."  More 
than  a  century  ago  it  had  been  computed  that  but  one  tenth  of 
the  defect  in  the  harvest  may  raise  the  price  three  tenths,  and 
two  ninths  deficiency  raise  the  price  eight  tenths.  This  was 
the  opinion  of  D'Avenant  and  Gregory  King.  Mr.  Tooke, 
»  Hansard,  xxxiii.  p.  34. 


40  HISTORY   OF  THE  PEACE.  [BOOK  I. 

in  quoting  this  passage,  says : 1  "  There  in  some  ground  for 
supposing  that  the  esii.iiate  is  not  very  wide  of  the  truth,  from 
observation  of  the  repeated  occurrence  of  the  fact,  that  the  price 
of  corn  in  this  country  has  risen  from  100  to  200  per  cent,  and 
upwards,  when  the  utmost  computed  deficiency  of  the  crops 
has  not  been  more  than  between  one  sixth  and  one  third  below 
an  average,  and  when  that  deficiency  has  been  relieved  by  for- 
eign supplies."  Upon  this  principle  we  may  estimate  the  value 
of  Mr.  Western's  assertion  that,  during  the  flourishing  years  to 
which  he  refers,  the  profits  of  agriculture  had  not  been  large.  If 
the  produce  of  an  acre  of  wheat  in  good  years  be  thirty-three 
bushels,  sold  for  6s.  a  bushel,  the  amount  realized  would  be  9/. 
18*.  If  the  produce  in  an  unfavorable  season  were  diminished 
one  sixth,  and  the  price  raised  from  6s,  to  12s.,  the  27^  bushels 
would  produce  1QL  10s.  The  difference  is  profit.  At  the  com- 
mencement of  the  war,  in  1793,  the  average  price  of  wheat  was 
49s.  6rf.  a  quarter;  in  1794,  it  was  54s.;  in  1795  and  1796, 
years  of  scarcity,  it  was  above  80s. ;  in  1797  and  179H,  it  fell 
again  to  the  prices  of  1794.  The  harvests  of  1799  and  1800 
were  fearful  visitations  of  scarcity.  At  Michaelmas,  1798,  the 
quarter  of  wheat  sold  for  92s. ;  and  at  Michaelmas,  1800,  for 
128s.  The  winter  of  1800-1  was  the  season  of  the  greatest  pri- 
vation that  had  been  experienced  in  this  country  since  the  days 
when  famine  wTas  a  common  occurrence :  before  the  harvest  of 
1801  the  quarter  of  wheat  had  risen  to  177s.,  and  the  quartern 
loaf  had  reached  the  fearful  price  of  2s.  within  a  half-penny. 
From  1802  to  1807  were  years  of  abundance  ;  but  the  price  of 
wheat  never  went  down  to  that  of  the  years  preceding  1800. 
During  these  six  years  the  lowest  average  price  of  any  one  year 
was  60s. ;  the  average  price  of  the  six  years  was  75s.  But  the 
six  years  from  1808  to  1813  were  years  of  deficient  produce; 
the  price  of  wheat  during  that  period  went  up,  according  to  the 
principle  of  Gregory  King  and  of  Mr.  Western.  The  price  be- 
fore the  harvest  of  1808  was  74s.  6d.  the  quarter;2  at  the  same 
period  in  1809,  it  was  100s.;  in  1810,  120s.;  in  1811,  104s.; 
in  1812,  136s.;  in  1813,  136s.  The  average  price  of  the  six 
years,  108s.:  an  excess  of  33s.  above  the  average  price  of  the 
six  years  from  1802  to  1807.  In  1810  the  foreign  supply  was 
very  considerable  ;  but  for  that  supply  scarcity  would  have  be- 
come famine.  In  1811  and  1812  there  was  a  virtual  exclusion 
of  foreign  supply.  For  four  of  these  years  of  high  prices  out  of 
the  six,  the  agricultural  interest  had  the  exclusive  advantage  of 
the  rise  of  price,  far  advanced  above  the  degree  of  defect.  That 
was  the  period,  within  the  recollection  of  many  of  us,  when  every 
acre  of  land  was  eagerly  bought  up ;  when  the  enclosure  of 
i  History  of  Prices,  i.  p.  13.  2  Eton  Tables. 


CHAP.  HI/I  REVIEW  OF  AGRICULTURE.  41 

wastes  went  on  to  an  excess  that  had  very  slight  regard  to  the 
quality  of  the  land  enclosed ;  when  the  cultivation  of  wheat  was 
forced  to  an  extent  that  had  no  reference  to  the  exhaustion  of 
the  soil,  or  the  necessities  of  economical  husbandry ;  when  rents 
were  raised  twofold,  and  often  threefold,  above  the  rents  of 
1792  ;  when  the  race  of  small  careful  farmers  vanished  from  the 
earth,  and  gave  place  to  a  legion  of  the  most  luxurious  and 
insolent  of  all  the  class  of  getters  of  sudden  wealth  ;  when 
the  whole  business  of  cultivation  was  an  affair  of  grasping  ig- 
norance —  a  scramble  for  excessive  gains,  in  which  the  land- 
owners eagerly  participated  ;  when  the  system  of  bread  allow- 
ances in  aid  of  wages  was  made  the  instrument  of  debasing 
the  laborer  into  a  predial  slave,  and  the  poor-rates,  heavy  as 
they  were,  operated  as  a  positive  bounty  to  the  agriculturists, 
by  enabling  them  to  feed  their  own  laborers  out  of  their  own 
produce,  thus  raising,  by  improvident  consumption,  the  pi-ice  of 
bread  on  all  the  non-agricultural  population,  and  leaving  to  the 
agricultural  population  no  surplus  for  the  minor  necessaries  of 
life.  This  was  the  period  when,  according  to  Mr.  Western,  "  ag- 
riculture was  in  a  nourishing  and  prosperous  state."  In  1814 
there  was  the  fear  of  peace  and  the  fear  of  abundance,  to  come 
across  the  dreams  that  this  state  of  things  would  last  forever. 
When  the  overpowering  landed  interest  in  1814  and  1815  de- 
manded a  new  corn-law  of  parliament,  prices  had  fallen  to  the 
average  of  the  years  from  1802  to  1807.  In  1816,  when  the 
cry  of  "distress"  was  at  its  height, — when  it,  was  proclaimed 
that  the  universal  bankruptcy  of  the  cultivators  was  at  hand  ; 
that  no  rents  could  be  paid  ;  that  the  soil  of  England  would  go 
out  of  cultivation,  —  no  one  in  parliament  uttered  the  undoubted 
truth,  that  the  years  of  agricultural  prosperity  had  been  years  of 
suffering  and  depression  to  all  other  classes  of  the  community  ; 
that  the  reckless  prodigality  of  the  cultivators,  and  their  false 
ambition  to  win  a  higher  social  position  than  their  forefathers  — 
not  by  their  prudence  and  intelligence,  but  by  their  ostentation  ; 
that  the  lavish  and  unprofitable  expenditure  of  farm  ing.  capital,  in 
connection  with  excessive  rents,  had  mainly  led  to  the  insolven- 
cies and  executions  for  debt  which  were  paraded  as  evidences  of 
national  decay ;  that  the  good  soils  unnaturally  exhausted,  and 
the  poor  soils  unnaturally  broken  up.  must  go  out  of  cultivation 
under  a  more  healthy  and  less  artificial  system ;  that  the  exclu- 
sion of  foreign  supply  had  forced  the  growth  of  wheat,  to  the 
injury  of  truly  productive  cultivation  :  and  that  the  boasted 
agricultural  improvements  were  really  little  more  than  an  exten- 
sion of  the  surface  under  tillage,  to  the  neglect  of  scientific  hus- 
bandry, which  the  farmers  of  that  day  ridiculed,  and  the  aban- 
donment of  the  minor  economies  out  of  which  their  predecessors 


42  HISTORY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [BOOK  L 

had  mafle  their  chief  profits.  The  great  crop  of  1813,  which 
left  a  surplus  produce  for  two  or  three  years,  came  as  the  natural 
corrective  for  this  really  evil  condition  of  society.  The  remedy 
was  a  severe  one,  and  we  may  commiserate  the  individual  suffer- 
ing of  the  transition  state.  We  may  even  consider  that  the  corn- 
law  of  1815,  as  a  merely  temporary  measure,  did  something  not 
unproductive  of  general  benefit  to  break  the  fall  of  the  agricult- 
ural interests.  But  when,  in  a  course  of  struggle  after  struggle, 
it  was  sought  to  perpetuate  the  principles  of  that  law  —  the  prin- 
ciples which  formed  the  creed  of  the  land-owners  of  1816  — 
"  that  excessive  taxation  renders  it  necessary  to  give  protection 
to  all  articles  the  produce  of  our  own  soil,  against  similar  articles 
the  growth  of  foreign  countries  "  —  it  was  time  to  consider  what 
were  the  interests  of  a  class,  and  what  were  the  ;.nterests  of  a 
nation.  That  consideration  came  tardily  upon  the  most  enlight- 
ened and  disinterested  of  the  government  and  the  legislature. 
But  it  did  come ;  and  it  has  constituted  the  great  rallying- 
point  of  the  commercial  and  manufacturing  interests,  whose  power, 
whether  of  union,  or  wealth,  or  intelligence,  has  been  growing 
year  by  year,  and  making  proselytes  slowly  and  surely  with  the 
progress  of  that  general  spread  of  knowledge,  compared  \\ith 
which  all  mere  party  bonds  are  but  ropes  of  sand. 

The  resolutions  of  Mr.  Western  in  1816  came  to  no  practical 
result ;  for  the  chief  reason,  that  the  forced  abandonment  of  the 
property  tax,  and  the  voluntary  relinquishraent  of  the  war  malt- 
duty,  had  really  left  very  little  within  the  reach  of  government 
to  be  offered  as  a  further  boon  to  the  landed  interest.  When 
they  demanded  that  foreign  corn  should  be  n<i  longer  warehoused 
duty  free,  it  was  manifest  that  they  utterly  set  at  nought  every 
possible  precaution  against  a  season  of  dearth.  Their  relief  was 
to  be  attained  at  all  hazards  by  the  most  al>solute  and  uncondi- 
tional monopoly.  The  bonded  corn  could  not  be  let  out  of  ware- 
house till  the  home  price  had  reached  80$. ;  but  that  was  not 
enough.  When  the  hour  of  dearness  should  arrive,  we  were  at 
once  to  scatter  our  emissaries  over  the  face  of  the  earth,  to  buy 
corn  at  any  price,  and  by  the  sudden  demand,  to  raise  the  foreign 
market  to  the  level  of  the  home  market,  so  that  the  "  flourishing 
and  prosperous  period  "  of  agriculture  might  be  secured  beyond 
all  hazard  of  the  interruption  to  be  produced  by  commercial  fore- 
sight. But  this  was  not  all.  Rape-seed  and  linseed  of  tlie  growth 
of  foreign  soils  were  to  be  prohibited ;  tallow,  cheese,  and  butter 
were  proposed  to  be  shut  out.  The  ministers  smiled  a  negative 
upon  the  most  presumptuous  of  these  demands.  "  afraid1  that  we 
had  already  gone  quite  as  far  as  policy  would  admit  in  our  sys- 
tem of  prohibitions,  if  not  indeed  too  far ;  and  we  should  be  par- 
1  Mr.  Robinson :  Hansard,  xxxiii.  p.  693. 


CHAP.  III.]       MANUFACTURES  AND   COMMERCE.  43 

ticularly  cautious  how  we  advanced  still  further  into  the  system." 
The  legislative  exhibition  of  the  \\isdom  that  shouted  for  uncon- 
ditional protection  may  be  summed  up  in  one  short  and  emphatic 
speech : 1  "  The  strength,  the  virtue,  and  the  happiness  of  the 
people  mainly  depended  on  the  prosperity  of  the  agriculture  of 
the  country  ;  and  on  this  principle  the  country  should  be  forced  to 
feed  its  own  population.  No  partial  advantage  to  be  derived 
from  commerce  could  compensate  for  any  deficiency  in  this  re- 
spect. The  true  principle  of  national  prosperity  was  an  absolute 
prohibition  of  the  importation  of  foreign  agricultural  produce, 
except  in  extreme  cases." 

"  Manufactures  and  commerce,"  said  the  speech  of  the  Prince 
Regent,  "  are  in  a  flourishing  condition."  This  was  to  Manufact_ 
rely  upon  the  bare  figures  of  custom-house  returns,  urea  and 
In  1815  the  declared  value  of  British  and  Irish  prod- 
uce and  manufactures  exported  was  fifty-one  millions,  being  six 
millions  more  than  in  1814.  Well  might  the  commerce  of  the 
country  seem  to  be  flourishing.  Those  who  knew  the  real  work- 
ings of  that  commerce  were  not  so  deceived.  Mr.  Baring,  on  the 
second  night  of  the  session,  declared  that  "  he  saw  more  loss  than 
gain  in  this  great  increase  of  export."  When  the  destruction  of 
the  power  of  Napoleon  in  1814  had  opened  the  ports  of  the  con- 
tinent to  our  vessels  —  when  the  consumption  of  our  exports  no 
longer  depended  upon  a  vast  system  of  contraband  trade  —  it 
was  universally  thought  that  there  could  be  no  limit  to  the  de- 
mand for  British  manufactures  and  colonial  produce.  If,  under 
the  anti-commercial  decrees  of  our  great  enemy,  the  shipments  to 
European  ports  had  been  twelve  millions  in  181 1,  why  should 
they  not  be  doubled  in  1814?  And  accordingly  they  were 
doubled.  The  most  extravagant  profits  were  expected  to  be 
realized.  The  ordinary  course  of  trade  was  forsaken,  and  small 
capitalists  as  well  as  large,  at  the  outports  as  well  as  in  London, 
eagerly  bought  up  colonial  produce,  and  looked  for  golden  re- 
turns. "  The  shippers  -  found  to  their  cost,  when  it  was  too  late, 
that  the  effective  demand  on  the  continent  for  colonial  produce 
and  British  manufactures  had  been  greatly  overrated ;  for  what- 
ever might  be  the  desire  of  the  foreign  consumers  to  possess  arti- 
cles so  long  out  of  their  reach,  they  were  limited  in  their  means 
of  purchase ;  and  accordingly,  the  bulk  of  the  commodities  ex- 
ported brought  very  inadequate  returns."  Mr.  Brougham  in 
1816  correctly  described  the  result  of  these  exportations  :  8  •'  The 
bubble  soon  burst,  like  its  predecessors  of  the  South  Sea,  the 
Mississippi,  and  Buenos  Ayres.  English  goods  were  selling  for 
much  less  in  Holland  and  the  north  of  Europe,  than  in  London 

i  Mr.  Barham:  Hansard,  xxxiii.  p.  698. 

a  Tooke's  History  of  Prices,  ii.  p.  8.  8  Brougham's  Speeches,  i.  p.  519. 


44  HISTOBY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [BOOK  L 

and  Manchester ;  in  most  places  they  were  lying  a  dend  weight 
without  any  sale  at  all ;  and  either  no  returns  whatever  were 
received,  or  pounds  came  back  for  thousand-;  that  had  gone  forth." 
A  very  slight  consideration  will  explain  the  causes  of  this  enor- 
mous mistake.  In  the  first  place,  the  continent  was  wholly  ex- 
hausted by  the  long  course  of  war  —  by  the  prodigious  expendi- 
ture of  capital  that  the  war  had  demanded  —  by  the  wasteful 
consumption  of  mighty  armies  embattled  against  the  oppressor  — 
by  the  rapine  of  the  predatory  hordes  that  were  let  loose  upon 
their  soil — by  confiscation.  The  people  had  necessarily  the 
greatest  difficulty  to  maintain  life  ;  they  had  little  to  spare  for  the 
secondary  necessaries  —  nothing  for  indulgence.  The  merchants 
of  our  own  country  —  the  nation  in  general  —  had  been  so  accus- 
tomed to  the  outward  indications  of  prosperity  at  home  during 
the  course  of  the  war,  that  they  had  no  adequate  idea  that  war 
was  the  great  destroyer  of  capital,  and  that  it  essentially  left  all 
mankind  poorer.  In  the  second  place,  what  had  the  continent  to 
give  us  in  exchange  for  our  coffee  and  our  sugar,  our  calicoes 
and  our  cutlery?  The  old  mercantile  school  still  existed  amongst 
us,  who  thought  that  the  perfection  of  commerce  was  to  exchange 
goods  for  money,  and  that  a  great  commercial  nation  might  sub- 
sist without  barter.  But  the  continent  had  no  money  to  exchange 
for  English  products,  even  if  the  exploded  theories  of  the  bal- 
ance of  trade  could  have  found  any  realization.  The  continent, 
exhausted  as  it  was,  had  its  native  commodities ;  but  those  we 
refused.  France  had  her  wines,  but  we  resolved,  in  the  spirit  of 
the  most  high-flown  patriotism,  not  to  receive  them  upon  equal 
terms  .wit  li  those  of  Portugal;  the  Baltic  had  its  timber,  but  we 
determined  to  build  our  houses  with  the  inferior  growth  of  our 
North  American  colonies  ;  the  entire  north  of  Europe  woul  I 
have  applied  itself  to  raising  a  surplus  produce  of  corn  for  our 
increasing  non-agricultural  population,  but  the  corn-law  of  1815 
forbade  the  calling  forth  of  the  natural  resources  of  the  whole 
earth  to  remedy  the  miseries  of  occasional  local  scarcity  ;  Holland 
and  Belgium  had  their  cheese  and  butter  to  supply  the  insufficient 
dairy  produce  of  these  islands,  but  new  prohibitory  duties  were 
imposed,  directly  that  we  could  resort  to  their  markets.  We 
panted  for  continental  trade  ;  we  believed  that  the  peace  would 
give  us  the  marts  of  the  whole  world.  But  we  doggedly  held 
on  in  a  course  of  commercial  regulation  which  belonged  only  to 
the  infancy  of  society.  We  perpetuated  foreign  restrictions  and 
exclusions  of  our  own  manufactured  produce,  by  persistence  in  a 
system  which  other  nations  of  necessity  regarded  as  the  cause  of 
our  manufacturing  superiority.  We  d:d  not  then  know  how  es- 
sentially this  system  retarded  our  national  progress.  We  listened 
to  those  who,  on  every  side,  clamored  for  exclusive  interests. 


CHAP.  III.]  DEPRESSION  OF  INDUSTRY.  45 

Agriculturists  and  manufacturers,  land-owners  and  ship-owners, 
equally  shouted  for  protection. 

The  state  of  the  American  trade  of  1816  was  described  by 
Mr.  Brougham,  after  speaking  of  the  disastrous  results  of  the 
continental  speculations : 1  "  The  peace  with  America  has  pro- 
duced somewhat  of  a  similar  effect ;  though  I  am  very  far  from 
placing  the  vast  exports  which  it  occasioned  upon  the  same  foot- 
ing with  those  to  the  European  markets  the  year  before  ;  because 
ultimately  the  Americans  will  pay,  which  the  exhausted  state  of 
the  continent  renders  very  unlikely."  Let  us  remark  that  we 
did  not  prevent  the  Americans  paying  in  the  only  way  in  which 
one  great  people  can  pay  another  —  by  the  interchange  of  com- 
modities which  each  wants,  in  return  for  commodities  of  which 
each  can  produce  a  superfluity.  We  shut  out  their  corn,  but  we 
did  not  shut  out  their  cotton.  In  1813  we  retained  for  consump- 
tion only  fifty  million  pounds  of  cotton-wool;  in  1814,  only  fifty- 
three  millions ;  the  amount  consumed  of  each  year  being  less 
than  that  of  1804.  The  peace  with  America  came  at  the  end 
of  1814.  In  1815  we  consumed  ninety-two  million  pounds  ;  in 
1816,  eighty-six  million  pounds  ;  in  1817,  one  hundred  and  six- 
teen million  pounds;  and  in  1818,  one  hundred  and  sixty-two 
million  pounds.  But  we  went  further  with  the  United  States  in 
the  recognition  of  just  commercial  principles,  than  with  any 
European  nation.  By  the  Treaty  of  Ghent,  in  1814,  both  coun- 
tries agreed  to  repeal  their  navigation  laws,  and  '•  the  ships  2  of 
the  two  countries  were  placed  reciprocally  upon  the  same  foot- 
ing in  the  ports  of  England  and  the  United  States,  and  all  dis- 
criminating duties  chargeable  upon  the  goods  which  they  con- 
veyed were  mutually  repealed." 

The  distresses  of  the  agricultural  and  the  commercial  interests 
were   thus   coincident.      The   prices   of    agricultural   Generaide_ 
produce  were  depressed  by  superabundance  ;  but  the   pression  of 
superabundance  and  the  consequent  low  prices  produced 
small  benefit  to  the  manufacturing  consumers.     The  prices  of 
manufacturing  produce  were  depressed  by  the  glut  provided  for 
extravagant  speculation ;  but  the  glut  produced  no  increase  in 
the  command  over  the  secondary  necessaries  to  the  agricultural 
consumers.     The   means  of  purchase  amongst  all  classes  were 
exhausted.     The  capital  which  was  to  impel  their  profitable  in- 
dustry was  dried  up.     There  was  "  a  very  general  depression 8  in 
the  prices  of  nearly  all  productions,  and  in  the  value  of  all  fixed 
property,  entailing  a  convergence  of  losses  and  failures  among 
the  agricultural,  and  commercial,  and  manufacturing,  and  mining, 
and  shipping,  and  building  interests,  which  marked  that  period 

1  Brougham's  speeches,  i.  p.  519.  2  Porter's  Progress  of  the  Nation. 

*  Tooke's  History  of  Prices,  ii.  p.  12. 


46  HISTORY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [BOOK  I. 

as  one  of  the  most  extensive  suffering  and  distress."  Some 
proclaimed  that  the  depression  and  the  distress  were  caused,  not 
by  the  exhaustion  of  war,  but  by  "  the  transition /rom  a  state  of 
war  to  a  state  of  peace."  The  theory  upon  which  this  delusion 
was  upheld  was  this : 1  "  The  whole  annual  war  expenditure, 
to  the  amount  of  not  less  than  forty  millions,  was  at  once  with- 
drawn from  circulation.  But  public  expenditure  is  like  the 
fountain-tree  in  the  Indian  paradise,  which  diffuses  in  fertilizing 
streams  the  vapors  which  it  was  created  to  collect  and  condense 
for  the  purpose  of  more  beneficially  returning  and  distributing 
them."  According  to  this  logical  imagery,  or  imaginative  logic, 
the  capital  of  a  nation  in  the  pockets  of  its  proprietors  is  "  vapor  ;  " 
it  becomes  a  "  fertilizing  stream  "  when  it  condenses  into  taxes. 
It  assumes  that  there  is  more  demand  when  the  capital  of  a 
country  is  expended  by  government,  than  when  the  same  capital 
is  expended  by  individuals.  It  assumes  that  the  expenditure  of 
capital  by  government,  in  subsidies,  in  the  wasteful  consumption 
of  armies,  in  all  the  wear  and  tear  of  war,  is  more  profitable  than 
the  expenditure  of  capital  in  the  general  objects  of  industry 
which  create  more  capital.  It  assumes  that  the  partial  expendi- 
ture of  capital  by  government  in  its  victualling  offices,  is  more 
profitable  than  the  regular  -expenditure  of  the  same  capital  left 
in  the  pockets  of  the  tax-payers,  to  give  them  an  additional  com- 
mand over  the  comforts  and  elegancies  of  life.  One  who  saw 
through  a  fallacy  as  clearly  as  any  person,  and  had  no  respect  for 
the  mincing  phrases  of  the  worshippers  of  power  —  William 
Cobbett  —  says  of  such  dreams  of  the  advantage  of  government 
expenditure:2  "To  hear  this  talk,  one  would  suppose  that  gov- 
ernment was  a  very  rich  and  generous  thing,  having  an  immense 
estate  of  its  own,  instead  of  being  what  it  is  —  the  collector  of 
enormous  sums  drawn  away  from  the  people  at  large."  This 
fallacy,  as  well  as  many  others  connected  with  the  depression  of 
industry  at  the  close  of  the  Avar,  has  been  disproved  by  the  long 
experience  of  peace.  We  now  know  that  consumption  has  in- 
creased at  a  more  rapid  rate  than  at  any  period  during  the  quar- 
ter of  a  century  of  wild  profusion  ;  that  the  agricultural  and 
manufacturing  production  of  the  country  has  increased  in  the 
same  proportion  ;  that  the  real  property  of  the  nation  has  re- 
ceived the  like  increase  ;  that  the  increase  of  population  has  been 
more  than  commensurate.  We  had  arrived  in  1816  at  the  high- 
est point  of  war  exhaustion.  The  peace  came  as  the  slow  but 
sure  corrective.  Had  the  war  been  prolonged  another  three 
years,  upon  the  same  scale  as  the  expenditure  of  1813,  '14, 
and  '15  — had  one  hundred  and  ninety-seven  millions  more  been 
thrown  away  of  the  capital  of  the  nation  —  it  may  be  doubted 
1  Quarterly  Review,  July,  1616.  2  Political  Register,  Oct.  5, 1816. 


CHAP.  Ill]  CURRENCY.  47 

whether  sixty  years  of  peace,  instead  of  thirty,  would  have  re 
paired  the  consequences  of  such  an  unnatural  exhaustion. 

Although  the  time  is  not  arrived  for  presenting  any  details 
connected  with  the  resumption  of  cash  payments  by 
the  Bank  of  England,  it  is  necessary  that  we  should 
very  briefly  notice  the  opinion  which  so  generally  obtained  in 
1816,  that  the  depreciation  of  the  currency  during  the  war,  and 
the  practical  return  to  a  real  standard  at  the  period  of  peace, 
was  a  main  if  not  the  sole  cause  of  the  distress  and  embarrass- 
ment which  we  have  described.  Cobbett,  in  his  strong  and  ex- 
aggerated style,  puts  the  argument  thus : l  "  From  this  time 
[I7'.'7]  there  has  been  little  besides  paper-money.  This  became 
plenty,  and,  of  course,  wages  and  corn  and  everything  became 
high  in  price.  But,  when  the  peace  came,  it  was  necessary  to 
reduce  the  quantity  of  paper-money ;  because,  when  we  came  to 
have  intercourse  with  foreign  nations,  it  would  never  do  to  sell  a 
one-pound  note  at  Calais,  as  was  the  case,  for  about  thirteen  shil- 
lings. The  Bank  and  the  government  had  it  in  their  power  to 
lessen  the  quantity  of  paper.  Down  came  prices  in  a  litile  while  ; 
and  if  the  debt  and  taxes  had  come  down  too,  in  the  same  degree, 
there  would  have  been  no  material  injury ;  but  they  did  not. 
Taxes  have  continued  the  same.  Hence  our  ruin,  the  complete 
ruin  of  the  great  mass  of  farmers,  and  tradesmen,  and  small  land- 
lords ;  and  hence  the  misery  of  the  people."  This  was  published 
in  November,  1816.  The  theory  might  be  right,  that  the  re- 
duced amount  of  the  currency  was  the  main  cause  of  the  depres- 
sion of  prices,  if  the  facts  were  here  correctly  stated.  But  the 
Bank  of  England  at  the  peace  scarcely  contracted  its  issues  at 
all.  In  August,  1813,  the  circulation  of  bank-notes  was  nearly 
twenty-five  millions  ;  at  the  same  season  in  1814,  it  was  twenty- 
eight  millions;  in  1815,  twenty-seven  millions;  in  1816,  only 
half  a  million  less.  The  utmost  amount  of  the  depreciation  of 
bank-notes  was  in  1814,  when  a  hundred  pounds  of  paper  would 
only  buy  74/.  17s.  Gd.  of  gold, — a  depreciation  of  about  25  per 
cent.  In  1815  and  1816  a  hundred  pounds  of  paper  would  buy 
83/.  5s.  9rf.  of  gold,  —  a  depreciation  of  nearly  17  per  cent. 
Thus  the  rise  in  the  value  of  money  which  Cobbett,  and  many 
others  of  less  violent  politics,  declared  had  produced  the  wide- 
spreading  ruin  of  1816,  by  causing  a  proportionate  fall  of  the 
prices  of  commodities  exchanged  for  money,  was  not  more  than  8 
per  cent.,  as  compared  with  the  period  when  the  value  of  an  un- 
convertible paper-money  was  at  the  lowest.  It  is  no  less  true  that 
a  vast  amount  of  paper-money  was  withdrawn  from  circulation  at 
this  period,  by  the  failure  of  many  country-banks,  and  the  contrac- 
tion of  their  advances  by  all  who  were  stable.  This  was  a  conse- 
i  Political  Register,  Nov.  30, 1816. 


48  HISTORY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [BOOK  I. 

qiience  of  the  great  fall  of  agricultural  produce  —  a  consequence 
of  the  diminished  credit  of  the  producers.  When  the  restriction 
upon  cash  payments  by  the  Bank  of  England  was,  in  1816, 
agreed  to  be  renewed  for  two  years,  the  bearing  of  the  contin- 
uance of  the  restriction  upon  the  state  of  prices  was  not  over- 
looked. An  extract  from  Mr.  Horner's  speech  on  the  1st  May 
1816,  on  his  motion  for  a  committee  to  inquire  into  the  expe- 
diency of  restoring  the  cash  payments  of  the  Bank  of  England, 
will  supply  all  that  is  necessary  at  this  point  of  our  history  for 
the  elucidation  of  this  complicated  subject : 1  "  He  would  ask  the 
House,  had  they  felt  no  evils  from  the  long  suspension  of  cash- 
payments  ?  Were  they  sensible  of  no  evils,  after  all  that  had 
passed  in  the  course  of  the  discussions  of  the  agricultural  distress, 
during  which  no  one  had  been  hardy  enough  to  deny  that  a  great 
evil  had  arisen  from  the  sudden  destruction  of  the  artificial 
prices  ?  Would  any  man  say  that  there  had  not  been  a  great 
change  in  the  value  of  money  ?  What  this  was  owing  to,  might 
be  disputed  ;  but,  for  his  own  part,  he  had  not  the  least  doubt. 
From  inquiries  which  lie  had  made,  and  from  the  accounts  on 
the  table,  he  was  convinced  that  a  greater  and  more  sudden  re- 
duction of  the  circulating  medium  had  never  taken  place  in  any 
country,  than  had  taken  place  since  the  peace  in  this  country, 
with  the  exception  of  those  reductions  winch  had  happened  in 
France  after  the  Mississippi  scheme,  and  after  the  destruction  of 
the  assignats.  He  should  not  go  into  the  question  how  this  re- 
duction had  been  effected,  though  it  was  a  very  curious  one,  and 
abounded  in  illustrations  of  the  principles  which  had  been  so 
much  disputed  in  that  House.  The  reduction  of  the  currency 
had  originated  in  the  previous  fall  of  the  prices  of  agricultural 
produce.  This  fall  had  produced,  a  destruction  of  the  country- 
bank  paper  to  an  extent  which  would  not  have  been  thought  pos- 
sible without  more  ruin  than  had  ensued.  The  Bank  of  Eng- 
land had  also  reduced  its  issues,  as  appeared  by  the  accounts 
recently  presented.  The  average  amount  of  their  currency  was 
not,  during  the  last  year,  more  than  between  twenty-five  and 
twenty-six  millions  ;  while  two  years  ago  it  had  been  nearer 
twenty-nine  millions,  and  at  one  time  even  amounted  to  thirty-one 
millions.  But  without  looking  to  the  diminution  of  the  Bank 
of  England  paper,  the  reduction  of  country  paper  was  enough  to 
account  for  the  fall  which  had  taken  place.  Another  evil  which 
had  resulted  from  the  state  of  the  currency,  which  he  had  fore- 
seen and  predicted,  but  which  had  been  deemed  visionary,  was, 
that  during  the  war  we  had  borrowed  money,  which  was  then  of 
small  value,  and  we  were  now  obliged  to  pay  it  at  a  high  value. 
This  was  the  most  formidable  evil  which  threatened  our  finances ; 
1  Hansard,  xxxiv.  p.  143. 


CHAP.  III.]  MR.  HORNER  ON  CURRENCY.  49 

and,  though  he  had  too  high  an  opinion  of  the  resources  of  the 
country,  and  of  the  wisdom  of  the  government,  to  despair,  he  was 
appalled  when  he  considered  the  immense  amount  of  the  interest  of 
the  debt  contracted  in  that  artificial  currency,  compared  with  the 
produce  of  the  taxes.  .  .  .  Looking  forward  to  the  operation  of 
this  restriction  in  time  of  peace,  it  would  be  found  to  leave  us 
without  any  known  or  certain  standard  of  money  to  regulate  the 
transactions,  not  only  between  the  public  and  its  creditors,  but  be- 
tween individuals.  The  currency  which  was  to  prevail  was  not 
only  uncertain,  but  cruel  and  unjust  in  its  operation  —  at  one  time 
upon  those  whose  income  was  fixed  in  money,  and  to  all  creditors 
—  at  another  time,  when  by  some  accident  it  was  diminished  in 
amount,  to  all  debtors.  Was  not  this  an  evil  sufficient  to  attract 
the  attention  of  a  wise, a  benevolent,  and  a  prudent  government? 
If  they  looked  at  the  agricultural  interest,  was  not  a  fluctuation 
of  prices  the  greatest  of  evils  to  the  farmer  ?  For,  supposing 
prices  were  fixed  and  steady,  it  was  indifferent  to  him  what  was 
the  standard.  As  long  as  we  had  no  standard  —  no  fixed  value 
of  money  —  but  it  was  suffered  to  rise  and  fall  like  the  quick- 
silver in  the  barometer,  no  man  could  conduct  his  property  with 
any  security,  or  depend  upon  any  sure  and  certain  profit.  Per- 
sons who  were  aware  of  the  importance  of  this  subject  must  be 
surely  anxious  to  know  whether  there  were  any  imperative  rea- 
sons for  continuing  the  present  system ;  to  know  whether  it  was 
intended  to  revert  to  the  old  system ;  arid  if  not  now,  when  that 
system  would  be  reverted  to,  and  what  would  be  the  best  means 
for  bringing  about  that  measure." 

Here,  for   the   present,  we  leave   this  question  of  the  cur- 
rency. 


VOL.  11. 


50  HISTORY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [BOOK  L 


CHAPTER   IV. 

A  FRENCH  author,  in  one  of  those  rapid  generalizations 
which  are  characteristic  of  much  of  the  modern  his- 
torical writing  of  his  country,  and  which,  if  not  quite 
so  far  removed  from  truth  as  a  positive  falsification  of  facts,  are 
as  certainly  deceptive  —  M.  Capefigue  —  thus  describes  the  con- 
dition of  Great  Britain  after  the  peace : J  u  The  Convention  of 
1815  had  scarcely  been  signed  before  England  saw  a  formidable 
conspiracy  of  radicalism  spring  up  in. her  bosom.  It  was  not 
confined  to  a  few  outbreaks  easily  repressed,  but  displayed  itself 
in  masses  of  a  hundred  thousand  workmen,  who  destroyed  fac- 
tories and  pillaged  houses.  It  was  as  if  the  earth  trembled, 
ready  to  swallow  up  the  old  aristocracy."  Let  us  endeavor  to 
come  somewhat  nearer  the  truth,  by  tracing,  through  a  multitude 
of  details,  the  real  dangers  and  the  exaggerated  alarms  of  this 
moral  earthquake. 

We  have  shown  how  the  exhaustion  of  British  capital,  the 
unavoidable  consequent  weight  of  taxation,  the  depression  of 
agricultural  stock,  the  want  of  markets  for  native  and  colonial 
produce,  had  produced  that  paralysis  of  industry  which  marked 
the  latter  months  of  1815  and  the  beginning  of  1816.  That 
these  circumstances  were  most  felt  by  those  whose  voices  of 
complaint  were  least  heard,  by  the  working  population,  was  soon 
made  perfectly  manifest.  There  was  a  surplus  of  labor  in  every 
department  of  human  exertion.  Mr.  Brand  declared  in  parlia- 
ment,2 at  the  end  of  March,  speaking  especially  of  the  agricult- 
ural population,  that  "  the  poor,  in  many  cases,  abandoned  their 
own  residences.  Whole  parishes  had  been  deserted ;  and  the 
crowd  of  paupers,  increasing  in  numbers  as  they  went  from  par- 
ish to  parish,  spread  wider  and  wider  this  awful  desolation." 
Discharged  sailors  and  disbanded  militia-men  swelled  the  ranks 
of  indigence.  If  the  unhappy  wanderers  crowded  to  the  cities, 
they  encountered  bodies  of  workmen  equally  wretched,  wholly 
deprived  of  work,  or  working  at  short  time  upon  insufficient 
wages.  But  another  evil,  of  which  we  find  no  parliamentary 
record,  amidst  debates  on  the  prevailing  distress,  had  come  upou 
1  Diplomates  Europeans,  tome  i.  p.  426.  a  Hansard,  xxxiii.  p.  671. 


CHAP.  IV.]    POVERTY,  DISCONTENT,  AND   SEDITION.      51 

the  land  to  aggravate  discontent  into  desperation.1  While  the 
land-owners  were  demanding  more  protection,  and  passing  new 
laws  for  limiting  the  supply  of  food,  the  heavens  lowered — in- 
tense frosts  prevailed  in  February  —  the  spring  was  inclement 

—  the  temperature  of  the  advancing  summer  was  unusually  low 

—  and  in  July  incessant  rains  and  cold  stormy  winds  completed 
the  most  ungenial  season  that  had  occurred  in  this  country  since 
1799.2     In  January  the  average  price  of  wheat  was  52s.  6rf. ; 
in  May  it  was  76s.  4rf.     The  apprehensions  of  a  deficient  crop 
were  universal,  in  Germany,  in  France,  and   in  the  south  of 
Europe.     The  result  of  the  harvest  showed  that  these  apprehen- 
sions were  not  idle.     The  prices  of  grain  in  England  rap  dly  rose 
after  July ;  and  at  the  end  of  the  year,  rye,  barley,  and  beans 
had  more  than  doubled  the  average  market-price  of  the  begin- 
ning ;  wheat  had  risen  from  52s.  6d.  to  103s. 

"  The  matter  of  seditions  is  of  two  kinds,"  says  Lord  Bacon 

—  "much  poverty  and  much  discontentment."    Both  causes  were 
fully  operating  in  Great  Britain  in  1816.     The  seditions  of  abso- 
lute poverty  —  "  the  rebellions  of  the  belly,"  as  the  same  great 
thinker  writes  —  were  the  first  to  manifest  themselves.     Early 
in  May,  symptoms  of  insubordination  and  desperate  violence  were 
displayed  amongst   the  agricultural  population   of  the    eastern 
counties.     Legislators  had  been  accustomed  to  look  with  alarm 
at  the  organized  outbreaks  of  large  bodies  of  workmen  in  the 
manufacturing  districts,  as  in   1812;  but  insurrectionary  move- 
ments of  the  peasantry,  ignorant,  scattered,  accustomed  to  the 
dole  of  forced  benevolence,  and  therefore  broken  in  spirit,  were 
scarcely  to  be  heeded.     And   yet  these  "  poor   dumb  mouths " 
made  themselves  audible.     They  combined  in  the  destruction  of 
property  with  a  fierce  recklessness  that  startled  those  who  saw 
no  danger  but  in  the  violence  of  dense  populations,   and  who 
•were  constantly  proclaiming  that  the  nation  which  builds  on  man- 
ufactures sleeps  upon  gunpowder.     In  Suffolk  nightly  fires  of  in- 
cendiaries began  to  blaze  in  every  district ;  thrashing-machines 
were  broken  or  burnt  in  open  day ;  mills  were   attacked.     At 
Brandon,  near  Bury,  large  bodies  of  laborers  assembled  to  pre- 
scribe a  maximum  price  of  gram  and  meat,  and  to  pull  down  the 
houses  of  butchers  and  bakers.    They  bore  flags,  with  the  motto : 
"  Bread  or  blood."     At  Bury  and  at  Norwich  disturbances  of  a 
similar  nature  were  quickly  repressed.     But  the  most  serious 
demonstration  of  the  spirit  of  the   peasantry  arose  in  what   is 
called  "  the  Isle  of  Ely,"  that  isolated  fen-country  which  is  culti- 
vated by  a  population  of  primitive  habits,  a  daring  and  active 
population,  with  much  of  the  dogged  reliance  upon  brute  force 
which  characterized  their  Saxon  forefathers.     Early  in  the  ses- 

i  Tooke's  History  of  Prices,  ii.  p.  14.  2  Annual  Register,  1816,  p.  353. 


52  HISTORY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [Boon  L 

sion,  Mr.  "Western  described  the  agricultural  distress  of  tins  dis- 
trict as  exceeding  that  of  most  other  parts  of  the  kingdom. 
Executions  upon  the  property  of  the  cultivators,  distresses  for 
rent,  insolvencies,  farms  untenanted,  were  the  symptoms  of  this 
remarkable  depression.  When  we  regard  the  peculiar  character 
of  this  portion  of  the  country,  we  may  easily  understand  how  a 
great  fall  in  the  prices  of  grain  had  driven  the  land  out  of  culti- 
vation, and  cast  off  the  labor  of  the  peasantry,  to  be  as  noxious 
f  in  its  stagnation  as  the  overcharged  waters  of  that  artificially 
fertile  region.  That  country  was  then  very  imperfectly  drained ; 
and  the  rates  for  the  imperfect  drainage  being  unpaid  by  many 
tenants,  the  destructive  agencies  of  nature  were  more  active  than 
the  healing  and  directing  energies  of  man.  It  is  well  known,  too, 
that  in  the  fen-countries  the  temptation  of  immediate  profit  had 
more  than  commonly  led  the  farmer  to  raise  exhausting  crops, 
and  that  the  nature  of  the  land  under  such  circumstances  is  such 
that  a  more  provident  tillage,  and  abundant  manure,  cannot  for  a 
long  time  restore  it.  The  high  prices  of  wheat  from  1810  to 
1814  had  supplied  this  temptation.  The  Isle  of  Ely  in  1816  had 
become  somewhat  like  Prospero's  isle,  where  there  was  "  every- 
thing advantageous  to  life,  save  means  to  live."  It  was  under 
such  circumstances  that,  on  the  22d  of  May,  a  great  body  of  in- 
surgent fenmen  assembled  at  Littleport,  a  small  town  on  the  river 
L:irk.  They  commenced  their  riotous  proceedings  by  a  night- 
attack  on  the  house  of  a  magistrate.  They  broke  into  shops, 
emptied  the  cellars  of  public-houses,  and  finally  marched  to  Ely, 
where  they  continued  their  lawless  course  of  drunkenness  and 
plunder.  For  two  days  and  nights  these  scenes  of  violence  did 
not  cease  ;  and  the  parish  of  Littleport  was  described  as  resem- 
bling a  town  sacked  by  a  besieging  army,  the  principal  inhabi- 
tants having  been  compelled  to  abandon  their  houses,  in  terror  of 
their  lives,  leaving  their  property  to  the  fury  of  this  fearful  band 
of  desperate  men.  There  could,  of  necessity,  be  but  one  ter- 
mination. The  military  were  called  in,  and  a  sort  of  skirmish  en- 
sued, in  which  blood  flowed  on  both  sides.  A  large  number  of 
the  rioters  were  finally  lodged  in  Ely  jail.  Then  came  the  sure 
retribution  of  the  offended  laws.  A  special  commission  was  is- 
sued for  the  trial  of  the  culprits.  Thirty-four  persons  were  con- 
victed and  sentenced  to  death,  on  charges  of  burglary  and  rob- 
bery, of  whom  five  were  executed.  In  pronouncing  sentence 
upon  these  unhappy  men,  Mr.  Justice  Abbot  said :  "It  wa>  sug- 
gested abroad,  that  you  had  been  induced  to  perpetrate  these 
violent  outrages  by  hard  necessity  and  want ;  but  after  attending 
closely  and  strictly  to  the  whole  tenor  of  the  evidence,  there  has 
not  appeared  in  the  conditon,  circumstances,  or  behavior  of  any 
one  of  you,  any  reason  to  sup  pose  that  you  were  instigated  by  dis- 


CIIAP.  IV.]    AGRICULTURAL  AND   COAL  DISTRICTS.         53 

tress."  And  yet  great  distress  might  have  existed  in  the  general 
population,  without  the  wretched  leaders  in  these  riots  being 
especially  distressed;  for  several  of  those  who  underwent  the 
capital  punishment  were  persons  above  the  condition  of  laborers. 
It  is  difficult  to  believe  that  the  distress  of  the  land-owners  and 
tenants  should  have  been  greater  in  the  Isle  of  Ely  than  in  most 
other  parts  of  the  kingdom,  and  that  the  laborers  should  not  have 
been  impelled  to  outrage  by  "  hard  necessity  and  want." 

Incendiary  fires,  attempts  at  plunder,  riots  put  down  by  mili- 
tary force,  spread  alarm  through  districts  chiefly  agrri- 

.*         i        FIM          T  x  1-11  f  11  Coal  districts. 

cultural.  Ihe  distress  which  had  fallen  upon  the 
manufacturing  and  other  non-agricultural  portions  of  the  popula- 
tion was  manifested  in  many  signal  ways.  At  the  beginning  of 
July,  a  body  of  colliers,  thrown  out  of  employment  by  the  stop- 
page of  iron-works  at  Bilston,  took  the  singular  resolution  of  set- 
ting out  to  London,  for  the  purpose  of  submitting  their  distresses 
in  a  petition  to  the  Prince  Regent,  and  presenting  him  with  two 
wagons  of  coals,  which  they  drew  along  with  them.  One  party 
advanced  as  far  as  St.  Alban's,  and  another  reached  Maidenhead 
Thicket.  The  Home  Office  took  the  precaution  of  sending  a 
strong  body  of  police,  with  magistrates,  from  London,  to  meet 
these  poor  fellows,  and  induce  them  to  return  ;  and  they  were 
successful.  The  men,  who  had  conducted  themselves  with  the 
most  perfect  order,  were  satisfied  to  depart  homewards,  having 
been  paid  for  their  coals,  and  accepting  also  some  charitable  con- 
tribution. They  bore  a  placard  :  "  Willing  to  work,  but  none 
of  us  to  beg ; "  and  they  required  certificates  from  the  magis- 
trates that  they  had  conducted  themselves  with  propriety.  Their 
example  was  followed  by  other  unemployed  colliers  from  Staf- 
fordshire, who  yoked  themselves  in  a  similar  way  to  loaded  wag- 
ons. But  their  progress  towards  London  was  not  very  consider- 
able.1 The  distresses  of  the  workmen  in  the  iron  trade  were 
quite  appalling.  Utter  desolation  prevailed  in  districts  where 
iron-works  had  been  suspended.  The  workmen  in  these  districts 
used  to  be  surrounded  with  many  comforts.  They  had  saved  a 
little  money.  The  factories  were  shut  up ;  the  furnaces  blown 
out ;  the  coal-pits  closed.  Then  the  neat  cottages,  where  hun- 
dreds of  families  had  lived  in  comfort,  were  gradually  stripped 
of  every  article  of  furniture;  the  doors  of  these  once  cheerful 
dwellings  were  barred  ;  the  families  were  wandering  about  the 
country,  seeking  for  that  relief  from  private  charity  which  the 
parishes  could  not  offer.  Depredation  was  very  rare.  Later  in 
the  year,  the  miners  and  colliers  connected  with  the  great  iron- 
works in  the  neighborhood  of  Merlin  r  assembled  in  a  tumult- 
uous manner ;  and  their  numbers  gradually  swelling  till  they 
1  Letter  in  Annual  Register,  1810. 


54  HISTORY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [BOOK  L 

reached  ten  or  twelve  thousand,  they  finally  extinguished  the 
blast  at  several  works,  but  did  little  other  damage.  These  men 
were  on  very  reduced  wages ;  but  their  distress  does  not  seem  to 
have  been  nearly  so  great  as  the  utter  destitution  of  the  Staf- 
fordshire colliers. 

In  the  year  1812  an  act  was  passed  "for  the  more  exemplary 
Machine-  punishment  of  persons  destroying  or  injuring  any 
breaking.  stocking  or  lace  frames,  or  other  machines  or  engines 
used  in  the  framework-knitting  manufactory,  or  any  articles  or 
goods  in  such  frames  or  machines."  The  object  of  the  act  was 
to  make  the  offence  capital.  The  cause  for  this  increase  to  the 
fearful  list  of  offences  to  which  the  penalty  of  death  was  attached, 
was  the  system  of  riot  and  destruction,  bordering  on  insurrection, 
which  had  prevailed  in  Nottingham  and  the  adjacent  counties  for 
more  than  three  months.  There  never  before  was  such  an  or- 
ganized system  of  havoc  resorted  to  by  men  who  were  at  once 
grossly  ignorant  and  preeminently  crafty.  "The  depredations1 
had  been  carried  on  with  a  greater  degree  of  secrecy  and  man- 
agement than  had  ever  been  known  in  any  similar  proceedings ; 
so  much  so,  that  the  magistrates  could  not  take  upon  themselves 
to  apprehend  the  persons  whom  they  suspected  of  having  com- 
mitted the  outrages.  It  was  peculiarly  easy  for  parties  who  were 
ill  disposed,  to  perpetrate  those  illegal  acts  ;  for,  in  many  instances, 
the  machinery  was  used  in  isolated  houses,  which  were  far  from 
any  neighborhood,  and  persons  having  secreted  themselves  about 
the  premises,  felt  no  difficulty  in  destroying  the  frames,  which 
could  be  performed  with  very  little  noise.  In  one  instance,  the 
mischief  had  been  done  actually  in  sight  of  the  military ;  and  in 
another,  they  were  not  more  than  one  hundred  yards  from  the 
premises.  The  rioters  had  also  occasionally  gone  to  the  villages 
in  bodies  of  about  fifty  men,  and  having  stationed  sentinels  at  the 
different  avenues,  the  remainder  employed  themselves  in  destroy- 
ing all  the  frames ;  and  this  was  executed  with  so  much  secrecy, 
that  not  a  trace  of  the  parties  was  left  in  the  course  of  a  few- 
minutes."  Such  was  the  character  of  the  Luddite  insurrection 
of  1812.  In  spite  of  the  increase  of  punishment,  the  system 
was  never  wholly  put  down.  In  1816  it  broke  forth  with  new 
violence.  At  Loughborough,  in  July,  many  frames  employed  in 
the  manufacture  of  lace  were  destroyed  wirh  the  same  secrecy 
as  in  1812.  Armed  bands,  under  the  command  of  a  chief,  held 
the  inhabitants  in  nightly  terror,  commanding  them  to  put  out 
their  lights,  and  keep  within  their  houses,  under  penalty  of  death. 
Their  ravages  were  not  confined  to  the  towns  ;  they  would  march 
with  suddenness  and  secrecy  to  distant  villages,  and  rapidly  effect 
their  purposes  of  destruction.  The  General  Ludd,  who  led  on 
1  Hansard,  xxi.  p.  809.  Mr.  Secretary  Ryder. 


CHAP.  IV.]  FRAME-BREAKING.  55 

these  armed  and  disguised  desperadoes,  would  address  his  forces 
in  a  short  speech,  divide  them  into  parties,  and  assign  their  re- 
spective operations.  Then,  in  the  silence  of  night,  would  houses 
and  factories  be  broken  open,  frames  and  other  machines  demol- 
ished, unfinished  Avork  scattered  on  the  highways,  furniture  be 
wholly  destroyed.  The  ignorance  which  has  more  or  less  pre- 
vailed at  all  times  on  the  subject  of  machinery  —  coupled  with 
the  want  of  employment  produced  by  the  depression  of  every 
branch  of  industry  —  was  the  cause  that,  undeterred  by  the  ter- 
rible penalties  of  the  law,  the  Luddites  strll  pursued  the  course 
which  had  wellnigh  driven  the  lace  manufacture  from  their  dis- 
trict, and  converted  temporary  into  permanent  ruin.  The  futility 
of  the  legislation  of  1812  was  well  exposed  in  a  protest  of  Lords 
Lauderdale  and  Rosslyn  on  the  introduction  of  the  bill : *  "  We 
agree  in  the  opinion  so  generally  expressed  in  this  House,  that 
the  conduct  of  the  manufacturers,  in  destroying  frames  and  other 
machinery  used  in  our  manufactures,  must  proceed  from  mistaken 
views  of  their  own  interest,  as  they,  more  than  any  other  class  of 
his  majesty's  subjects,  are  deeply  interested  in  the  preservation 
of  machinery,  to  the  improvement  of  which  we  owe  our  existence 
as  a  manufacturing  country.  But  we  think  it  our  duty,  strongly 
and  in  distinct  terms,  to  reprobate  the  unprecedented  folly  of 
attempting  to  enlighten  the  minds  of  men  in  regard  to  what  is 
beneficial  for  themselves,  by  increased  severity  of  punishment ; 
whilst  every  sound  principle  of  criminal  legislation  makes  us  re- 
gard such  an  addition  to  the  long  list  of  offences  already  sub- 
jected to  capital  pun'shment  by  the  laws  of  this  country,  with 
astonishment  and  disgust ;  and  every  feeling  of  humanity  leads 
us  to  express  the  utmost  horror  at  the  wanton  cruelty  of  punish- 
ing our  fellow-creatures  with  death  for  those  culpable  acts,  more 
injurious  to  themselves  than  to  any  other  part  of  the  community, 
to  which,  through  mistaken  views  of  policy,  the  increasing  dis- 
tress of  the  times  has  induced  them  to  resort." 

The  wealthier  classes  of  this  country  are  never  wanting  in  the 
disposition  to  relieve  the  distresses  of  their  fellow-  private  be- 
subjects  by  liberal  contributions.  The  sufferings  of  nevJfcnce. 
the  poor  in  1816  were  too  manifest  not  to  call  forth  an  unusual 
amount  of  public  sympathy,  displayed  in  subscriptions  for  relief, 
and  in  schemes  for  providing  employment.  However  local  char- 
ity may  have  mitigated  the  intensity  of  the  evil  arising  out  of 
the  general  exhaustion  of  capital,  a  calm  review  of  the  more 
ostentatious  exertions  of  that  period  forces  upon  us  the  conclu- 
sion that  such  attempts  are  for  the  most  part  wholly  inefficient 
—  more  calculated  to  produce  a  deceptive  calm  in  the  minds  of 
those  who  give,  than  to  afford  any  real  or  permanent  benefit  to 
those  who  receive. 

i  Hansard,  xxi.  p.  1085. 


56  HISTORY  OF   THE  PEACE.  [BOOK  L 

On  the  29th  July  a  very  remarkable  meeting  took  place  at  the 
City  of  London  Tavern,  "  to  take  into  consideration  the  present 
distressed  state  of  the  lower  classes,  and  the  most  effectual  means 
of  extending  relief  to  them."  The  Duke  of  York  took  the 
chair ;  the  Duke  of  Kent  and  the  Duke  of  Cambridge  moved 
resolutions  ;  the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury  and  the  Bishop  of 
London  also  took  part  in  the  proceedings,  as  well  as  several 
peers,  the  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer,  and  Mr.  Wilberforce. 
This  meeting  for  purposes  of  holy  charity  was  converted  into  a 
political  brawl.  It  was  a  time  of  brawlers  ;  but  the  rude  energy 
and  the  bad  taste  of  much  of  the  declamation  that  disturbed  the 
quiet  of  public  meetings  was  not  wholly  removed  from  strong 
sense  and  unanswerable  reasoning.  Lord  Cochrane,  on  this  oc- 
casion, compelled  the  alteration  of  a  resolution  which  declared 
"  That  the  transition  from  an  extensive  warfare  to  a  system  of 
peace  has  occasioned  a  stagnation  of  employment  and  a  revulsion 
of  trade."  The  promoters  of  the  meeting  consented  to  affirm 
the  fact,  without  setting  up  a  delusive  cause.  The  Duke  of 
Kent,  who  moved  the  first  resolution,  said :  '"  If  they  should  be 
so  happy  as  but  to  succeed  in  discovering  new  sources  of  em- 
ployment, to  supply  the  place  of  those  channels  which  had  been 
suddenly  shut  up,  he  should  indeed  despond  if  we  did  not  soon 
restore  the  country  to  that  same  flourishing  condition  which  had 
long  made  her  the  envy  of  the  world."  The  goodness  of  the 
intention  could  only  be  exceeded  by  the  absurdity  of  the  means. 
Here  was  a  body  of  the  great  and  wealthy  coming  forward  to 
subscribe  some  forty  or  fifty  thousand,  perhaps  even  a  hundred 
thousand  pounds,  not  merely  to  give  away  as  bread  and  soup  to 
two  or  three  millions  of  suffering  laborers  and  their  families,  but 
to  find,  out  of  this  fifty  or  a  hundred  thousand  pounds  capital, 
new  sources  of  employment,  which  the  millions  of  capital  that 
were  devoted  to  the  ordinary  courses  of  industry  would  have  in- 
stantly created,  if  such  new  employments  could  have  been  prof- 
itably exercised.  The  new  employment  was,  of  course,  to  be 
unprofitable  ;  it  could  afford  no  returns  to  produce  continued 
employment.  The  promoters  of  this  meeting  themselves  saw 
something  of  the  fallacy,  and  talked  of  the  inadequacy  of  their 
means  to  relieve  national  distress.  The  persons  who  disturbed 
the  usual  placid  and  complimentary  course  of  such  proceedings, 
clamored  for  remission  of  taxation,  reduced  expenditure,  abolition 
of  sinecures.  Upon  this  subject  the  chief  organ  of  government 
thus  expressed  the  opinions  of  the  wealthier  classes :  *  "  Such  nu- 
merous bodies  of  men  having  been  thrown  out  of  employ,  every 
good  man  perceived  the  necessity  of  affording  them  temporary 
relief,  and  the  propriety  of  relieving  the  poor-rates  by  voluntary 
aid,  till  alterative  measures  of  permanent  policy  could  be  devised 
i  Quarterly  Review,  July,  1816. 


CHAP.  IV.]  PRIVATE  BENEVOLENCE.  57 

and  brought  into  action  for  gradually  removing  a  burden  that 
was  becoming  intolerable."  According  to  this  authority,  the 
subscriptions  did  not  add  to  the  fund  for  the  relief  of  distress  ; 
they  were  in  aid  of  the  poor-rates,  and  not  in  addition  to  them. 
The  poor-rates  in  1816  were  half  a  million  less  than  in  1814 ; l 
the  price  of  bread  was  higher ;  the  population  was  increased  ; 
and  the  number  of  quarters  of  wheat  for  which  the  money  raised 
by  poor-rate  could  have  been  exchanger!,  was  two  hundred  and 
forty  thousand  quarters  less  in  1816  than  in  1814,  and  two  hun- 
dred thousand  quarters  less  in  1816  than  in  1815.  To  put  the 
efficiency  of  the  poor-rates  upon  the  same  level  in  1816  as  they 
were  in  1814,  by  the  aid  of  voluntary  subscriptions,  the  commit- 
tee of  the  London  Tavern  ought  to  have  raised  as  much  money 
as  would  have  purchased  two  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  quar- 
ters of  wheat,  which  at  the  time  of  this  great  meeting  would 
have  cost  more  than  a  million  sterling.  We  mention  these  facts, 
not  to  make  ourselves  obnoxious  to  the  reproof'2  then  levelled 
against  the  reformers,  that  they  realized  the  old  story  of  the 
Needy  Knife-grinder  and  the  Friend  of  Humanity,  but  to  point 
out  the  folly  of  deceiving  our  own  consciences  as  to  the  power  of 
almsgiving  to  afford  adequate  relief  in  great  periods  of  national 
distress.  The  first  duty  of  the  capitalist  is  to  understand  what 
are  the  real  claims  of  labor  under  ordinary  circumstances,  and 
what  the  amount  of  assistance  that  can  be  rendered  under  ex- 
traordinary contingencies.  It  is  the  duty  of  government  so  to 
shape  its  policy  that  the  necessary  inequalities  of  demand  and 
supply  shall  not  be  rendered  more  oppressive  by  false  legislation. 
All  contention  for  interests  of  classes  or  individuals  —  all  blind- 
ness to  the  dreadful  calamity  of  an  unemployed,  inadequately 
paid,  starving,  and  therefore  dangerous  population  —  are  best 
exhibited  in  their  fatal  consequences,  when  it  is  seen  how  total- 
ly incompetent  is  the  heartiest  exercise  of  private  benevolence 
to  remedy  great  public  suffering.  The  economical  mistakes  of 
such  private  benevolence  would  be  matters  of  ridicule  if  they 
were  not  so  awful  in  their  delusions.  In  1816,  hand  corn-mills 
were  recommended  for  the  employment  of  the  poor,  to  supersede 
the  labor  of  the  miller ;  and  women  and  even  men  were  actually 
employed  to  shell  beans  in  the  fields,  to  supersede  the  more  effi- 
cient labor  of  the  thrasher.  Minor  schemes  were  recommended 
in  London,  and  published  to  the  world  authoritatively,  as  remedies 
for  the  absence  of  profitable  employment.  Of  these  the  most 
notable  were  the  making  of  cordage  out  of  hop-bines  and  weeds ; 
the  gathering  of  rushes  to  manufacture  candles  from  the  grease- 
pot;  the  plaiting  of  baskets  out  of  flags;  and  the  mixture  of 

1  See  Porter's  Progress  of  the  Nation,  i.  p.  82. 

2  Quarterly  Review,  July,  1810. 


58  HISTORY   OF   THE   PEACE.  [BOOK  I. 

fire-balls  out  of  clay  and  cinders,  to  supersede  coals.  It  is  per- 
fectly clear  that  if  these  employments  could  be  found  profitable 
by  the  sale  of  the  articles  produced,  the  regular  employment  in 
rope-making,  or  candle-making,  or  basket-making,  or  coal-mining, 
would  have  been  diminished.  Even  the  soup-kitchens,  which  in 
1816  were  set  up  through  the  country,  to  avert  starvation,  had 
their  evils.  The  recipients  of  the  benevolence  were  discontented 
with  its  limited  amount.  At  Glasgow  some  imaginary  insult 
offered  by  a  doler  of  the  soup  to  the  more  unfortunate  of  that 
large  community,  stung  the  people  to  madness  :  the  soup-kitchen, 
with  its  coppers  and  ladles,  was  destroyed  ;  the  outrage  swelled 
to  riot ;  the  military  were  called  in  ;  and  for  two  days  the  pop- 
ulous city  was  exposed  to  a  contest  between  the  soldiers  and 
the  mob.  At  Dundee  the  people  relieved  themselves  in  the  old 
summary  way  of  plunder :  a  hundred  shops  were  ransacked. 


CHAP.  V-l      DEVELOPMENT   OF  MIDDLE   CLASS.  59 


CHAPTER   V, 

LOTCD  BACON,  discoursing  of  the  second  cause  of  sedition  — 
"discontentments"  —  says:  "  There  is  in  every  state,  Parliamen. 
as  we  know,  two  portions  of  subjects,  the  noblesse  and  tary  re- 
the  commonalty.  When  one  of  these  is  discontent, 
the  danger  is  not  great ;  for  common  people  are  of  slow  motion, 
if  they  be  not  excited  by  the  greater  sort ;  and  the  greater  sort 
are  of  small  strength,  except  the  multitude  be  apt  and  ready  to 
move  of  themselves."  We  at  once  perceive  that  the  experience 
of  Lord  Bacon  was  limited  to  a  totally  different  state  of  society 
than  that  of  modern  England.  On  one  hand  was  "the  noblesse," 
"  the  greater  sort,"  —  the  makers  of  laws,  the  exclusive  possess- 
ors of  power ;  on  the  other,  "  the  commonalty,"  "  the  common 
people,"  "  the  multitude,"  — strong  in  union,  feeble  in  individu- 
ality. It  required  a  century  and  a  half  to  constitute  an  efficient 
third  class  —  the  middle  class  —  the  bourgeoisie  of  the  French. 
The  commonalty  was  then  cut  into  two  sections  —  the  most  in- 
fluential of  the  two  standing  between  the  higher  class  and  the 
lower  class.  The  term  "  lower  class,"  or  "  lower  classes,"  is  gone 
out  of  use.  The  term  is  thought  not  complimentary  to  the  de- 
mocracy, and  so  we  say  "  the  working  class."  which  is  less  precise, 
and  conveys  false  notions.  The  union  which  Lord  Bacon  exhib- 
ited as  the  most  fearful  to  the  sovereign  power,  was  that  which 
sprang  from  the  common  discontent  of  the  nobles  and  the  people. 
A  monarch,  according  to  the  great  imaginative  philosopher, 
should  be  the  Jupiter  whom  Pallas  counselled  to  call  Briareus, 
with  his  hundred  arms,  to  his  aid.  Sure  of  the  good-will  of  the 
common  people,  he  was  safe.  We  see  how  all  this  consists  with 
the  government  of  the  Tudors  and  the  first  Stuart ;  how  strictly 
it  represents  the  attributes  of  an  imperfect  civilization  ;  how 
much  remained  to  be  developed  before  the  more  favored  of  for- 
tune, the  more  complete  in  education  and  intelligence  of  "  the 
commonalty,"  could  be  raised  up  into  a  new  class.  The  far 
grander  problem  of  the  full  development  of  the  class  lowest  in 
point  of  wealth  and  power  —  of  the  class  highest  in  point  of  num- 
bers—  of  the  most  truly  important  class  with  reference  to  tho 
happiness  and  safety  of  modern  societies  —  this  problem  is  little 


60  HISTORY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [BOOK  I 

advanced  toward  solution  in  our  own  day.  It  scarcely  formed  an 
element  in  the  habitual  consideration  of  a  legislator  thirty  years 
ago.  And  yet  the  agitation  of  this  class  convulsed  our  whole 
social  system  at  that  period.  Those  struggles  were,  in  truth, 
the  first  moving  forces  of-  the  great  changes  which  have  since 
taken  place  in  the  political  position  of  the  class  next  above  the 
masses ;  and,  as  a  natural  consequence,  indirectly  in  their  own 
position. 

Up  to  the  close  of  1816,  the  spirit  of  parliamentary  reform 
was  seldom  evoked  in  the  British  parliament.  When  the  spirit 
was  occasionally  raised,  upon  the  presentation  of  some  stray  peti- 
tion, it  had  no  alarms  for  the  most  timid,  and  very  few  consola- 
tions for  the  most  ardent.  It  was  a  good  quiet  spirit  "  in  the  cel- 
larage "  —  an  "  old  mole  "  —  that  called  out,  in  antiquated  phrase, 
about  Magna  Charta  and  the  Bill  of  Rights ;  and  the  House  of 
Commons  listened  as  to  some  gabble  which  concerned  it  not,  and 
went  on  with  its  proper  work  of  Whig  and  Tory  fence,  conducted 
upon  the  most  approved  principles  of  the  first  masters  of  the  sci- 
ence. But  the  "worthy  pioneer"  got  above  ground  in  1816, 
and,  when  he  was  fairly  loosened  to  the  open  sky,  he  was  not 
quite  so  tarne,  and  innocent,  and  stupid  a  spirit  as  his  ordinary 
supporters  and  his  systematic  revilers  had  been  in  the  habit  of 
believing  him  to  be. 

The  House  of  Commons  was  not  generally  popular  in  1816. 
We  have  better  evidence  for  the  fact  than  that  of  the  pamphlet- 
eering or  oratorical  champions  of  reform.  Mr.  Hallam,  a  calm, 
constitutional  Whig  of  that  day,  rejoices  over  the  defeat  of  the 
ministry  on  the  property  tax,  chiefly  because  that  decision  had 
removed  "  the  danger1  of  increasing  the  odium  under  which  the 
House  of  Commons  already  labors  among  a  large  class  of  peo- 
ple, by  so  decidedly  resisting  the  wishes  of  the  nation."  And 
yet  the  call  for  parliamentary  reform  seems  to  have  made  itself 
very  feebly  heard  in  the  Lower  Elouse  at  this  period.  With  the 
exception  of  some  four  or  five  petitions  that  produced  very  slight 
discussion,  it  would  scarcely  be  thought,  from  an  inspection  of 
the  parliamentary  debates,  that  such  a  question  agitated  any  part 
of  the  nation  at  all.  On  one  occasion,  in  June,  some  members 
spoke  very  briefly  upon  the  subject.  One  complained  of  the 
apathy  with  which  the  question  was  regarded  in  England  ;  an- 
other ( Mr.  Brougham)  mentioned  the  cause  as  "  opposed  by  some, 
deserted  by  others,  and  espoused  by  persons  whose  conduct  ex- 
cited no  small  degree  of  disgust  out  of  doors."  2  But  from  this 
time  the  name  of  parliamentary  reform  became,  for  the  most 
part,  a  name  of  terror  to  the  government  —  to  the  elevated  by 
rank  and  wealth  —  to  the  most  influential  of  the  middle  classes. 
1  Homer's  Life,  ii.  p.  318.  2  Hansard,  xxxiv.  p.  1146. 


CHAP.  V.I  PARLIAMENTARY  REFORM.  61 

It  became  fearful  from  the  causes  which  would  have  made  it  con- 
temptible in  ordinary  times.  It  was  "  espoused  by  persons  whose 
conduct  excited  no  small  degree  of  disgust  out  of  doors."  It 
passed  away  from  the  patronage  of  a  few  aristocratic  lovers  of 
popularity,  to  be  advocated  by  writers  of  "  twopenny  trash,"  and 
to  be  discussed  and  organized  by  "  Hampden  Clubs  "  of  hunger- 
ing philanthropists  and  unemployed  "  weaver-boys." 

Let  us  hear  the  evidence  upon  this  matter  of  a  remarkable 
man  —  a  man  of  real  native  talent,  and,  like  a  very  large  number 
of  his  class,  of  honest  intentions : 1  — 

"At  this  time  [1816]  the  writings  of  William  Cobbett  sud- 
denly became  of  great  authority  ;  they  were  read  on  nearly  every 
cottage  hearth  in  the  manufacturing  districts  of  Soutli  Lan- 
cashire, in  those  of  Leicester,  Derby,  and  Nottingham  ;  also  in 
many  of  the  Scottish  manufacturing  towns.  Their  influence  was 
speedily  visible ;  he  directed  his  readers  to  the  true  cause  of 
their  sufferings  —  misgovernment ;  and  to  its  proper  corrective 
—  parliamentary  reform.  Riots  soon  became  scarce,  and  from 
that  time  they  have  never  obtained  their  ancient  vogue  with  the 
laborers  of  this  country. 

"  Let  us  not  descend  to  be  unjust.  Let  us  not  withhold  the 
homage  which,  with  all  the  faults  of  William  Cobbett,  is  still 
due  to  bis  great  name. 

"  Instead  of  riots  and  destruction  of  property,  Hampden  Clubs 
were  now  established  in  many  of  our  large  towns,  and  the  vil- 
lages and  districts  around  them ;  Cobbett's  books  were  printed 
in  a  cheap  form ;  the  laborers  read  them,  and  thenceforward  be- 
came deliberate  and  systematic  in  their  proceedings.  Nor  were 
there  wanting  men  of  their  own  class  to  encourage  and  direct  the 
new  converts ;  the  Sunday-schools  of  the  preceding  thirty  years 
had  produced  many  working-men  of  sufficient  talent  to  become 
readers,  writers,  and  speakers  in  the  village  meetings  for  parlia- 
mentary reform ;  some  also  were  found  to  possess  a  rude  poetic 
talent,  which  rendered  their  effusions  popular,  and  bestowed  an 
additional  charm  on  their  assemblages ;  and  by  such  various 
means,  anxious  listeners  at  first,  and  then  zealous  proselytes, 
were  drawn  from  the  cottages  of  quiet  nooks  and  dingles,  to  the 
weekly  readings  and  discussions  of  the  Hampden  Clubs." 

Cobbett  himself,  on  the  21st  December,  1816,  wrote  as  fol- 
lows : 2  — 

"  The  country,  instead  of  being  disturbed,  as  the  truly  seditious 
writers  on  the  side  of  corruption  would  fain  make  us  believe  ; 
instead  of  being  -  irritated '  by  the  agitation  of  the  question  of 
reform,  is  kept  by  the  hope  which  reform  holds  out  to  it,  in  a 

1  Passages  in  the  Life  of  a  Radical,  by  Samuel  Bamford,  i.  p.  8. 
a  Political  Register,  xxxi.  p.  799. 


62  HISTORY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [BOOK  L 

state  of  tranquillity,  wholly  unparalleled  in  the  history  of  the 
world,  under  a  similar  pressure  of  suffering.  Of  this  tact  the 
sad  scenes  at  Dundee  are  a  strong  and  remarkable  instance.  At 
the  great  and  populous  towns  of  Norwich,  Manchester,  Paisley, 
Glasgow,  Wigan,  Bolton,  Liverpool,  and  many,  many  others, 
where  the  people  are  suffering  in  a  degree  that  makes  the  heart 
sick  within  one  to  think  of.  they  have  had  their  meetings  to  peti- 
tion for  reform  ;  they  have  agreed  on  petitions ;  hope  has  been 
left  in  their  bosoms  ;  they  have  been  inspired  with  patience  and 
fortitude  ;  and  all  is  tranquil.  But,  at  Dundee,  where  a  partial 
meeting  had  been  held  early  in  November,  and  where  a  gentle- 
man who  moved  for  reform  had  been  borne  down,  there  violence 
has  broken  forth,  houses  have  been  plundered,  and  property  and 
life,  exposed  to  all  sort  of  perils,  and  this,  too,  amongst  the  sober, 
the  sedate,  the  reflecting,  the  prudent,  the  moral  people  of  Scot- 
land." 

The  writings  of  William  Cobbett,  at  this  critical  period,  are 
writings  of  certainly  amongst  the  most  valuable  of  the  materials 
Cobbett.  for  a  correct  view  of  the  disturbing  elements  of  our 
social  system,  and  of  the  circumstances  which  led  to  the  sub- 
sequent repressive  policy  of  the  government.  Up  to  the  2d 
November,  1816,  Cobbett's  "Weekly  Political  Rpgister"  was  a 
publication,  not  addressed  to  the  "  cottage  hearth,'  but  to  persons 
who  could  afford  lo  pay  a  shilling  and  a  half-penny  weekly,  for 
a  single  octavo  stamped  sheet,  printed  in  open  type.  His  writ- 
ings, singularly  clear  and  argumentative,  strong  in  personalities, 
earnest,  bold,  never  halting  between  two  opinions,  powerful  be- 
yond all  anonymous  writing  from  their  rare  individuality,  would 
have  commanded  an  extensive  influence  under  any  form  of  pub- 
lication. But  on  the  2d  November,  when  the  entire  sheet  was 
devoted  to  an  address  "  To  the  Journeymen  and  Laborers  of 
England,  Scotland,  and  Ireland,"  Cobbett  added  this  announce- 
ment:  "This  address,  printed  upon  an  open  sheet,  will  be  sold 
by  the  publisher  at  2d.  each,  and  for  12s.  Qd.  a  hundred,  if  a 
hundred  are  taken  together."  On  the  16th  November,  he  wrote 
thus:  "The  '  Register,'  No.  18,  which  was  reprinted  on  an  open 
sheet,  to  be  sold  for  2d.  by  retail,  having  been  found  to  be  very 
useful,  it  is  my  intention  to  continue  that  mode  of  proceeding 
until  the  meeting  of  parliament,  or  perhaps  until  the  reform  shall 

have   actually   taken   place Now,   events    are  pressing 

upon  us  so  fast,  that  my  '  Register,'  loaded  with  more  than  half  its 
amount  in  stamp,  and  other  expenses  incidental  to  the  stamp, 
does  not  move  about  sufficiently  swift  to  do  all  the  good  that  it 
might  do.  I  have  therefore  resolved  to  make  it  move  swifter." 
He  goi-s  on  to  say  that  the  stamped  "  Register  "  was  "  read  in 
meetings  of  people  in  many  towns,  and  one  copy  was  thus  made 


CHAP.  V.]         WILLIAM  COBBETT'S  WRITINGS.  63 

to  convey  information  to  scores  of  persons  ; "  but  that  he  finds,  in 
public-houses,  "  the  landlords  have  objected  to  meetings  for  read- 
ing the  '  Register '  being  held  at  their  houses,  for  fear  they  should 
lose  their  licenses."  He  accordingly  prints  the  twopenny  "  Regis- 
ter." We  see,  therefore,  why,  at  the  end  of  1816,  "  the  writings 
of  William  Cobbett  suddenly  became  of  great  authority,  and  were 
read  on  nearly  every  cottage  hearth  in  the  manufacturing  dis- 
tricts." Never  before  had  any  single  writer  in  England  wielded 
such  a  power.  The  success  of  this  experiment  upon  the  influ- 
ence to  be  produced  by  cheap  publications  was  such  as  to  lead 
him  to  reprint  some  of  the  more  exciting  of  his  previous  '•  Regis- 
ters." That  they  gave  the  discontent  of  the  laboring  classes  a 
new  direclion,  cannot  be  doubted;  that  they  did  much  to  repress 
riot  and  outrage,  may  fairly  be  conceded.  His  "  Letter  to  the 
Luddites,"  on  the  30th  November,  is  a  masterpiece  of  reasoning 
against  the  ignorant  hostility  to  machinery,  and  must  have  been 
far  more  effectual  than  a  regiment  of  dragoons.  But  that  they 
were  scat  e ring  the  seeds  of  a  greater  danger  than  the  outrage 
and  plunder  of  infuriated  mobs  cannot  be  denied.  Their  object 
was  suddenly  to  raise  up  the  great  masses  of  laborers  and  me- 
chanics into  active  politicians  ;  to  render  the  most  impatient  and 
uncontrollable  materials  of  our  social  system  the  most  prepon- 
derating —  hitherto  as  powerless  alone  as  the  "  commonalty  " 
of  Bacon,  without  the  leading  of  the  "  greater  sort."  The  dan- 
ger was  evident ;  the  means  of  repression  were  not  so  clear.  The 
effect  of  Cobbett's  writings  may  be  estimated  by  the  violence  of 
his  opponents,  as  well  as  the  admiration  of  his  disciples.  From 
the  date  of  his  twopenny  '•  Registers "  he  was  stigmatized  as 
a  "  firebrand,"  "  a  convicted  incendiary."  "  Why  is  it 1  that  this 
convicted  incendiary,  and  others  of  the  same  stamp,  are  permitted, 
week  after  week,  to  sow  the  seeds  of  rebellion,  insulting  the  gov- 
ernment, and  defying  the  laws  of  the  country  ?  .  .  .  .  We  have 
laws  to  prevent  the  exposure  of  unwholesome  meat  in  our  mar- 
kets, and  the  mixture  of  deleterious  drugs  in  beer.  We  have 
laws  also  against  poisoning  the  minds  of  the  people,  by  exciting 
discontent  and  disaffection  ;  why  are  not  these  laws  rendered 
effectual,  and  enforced  as  well  as  the  former  ?  "  The  answer  is 
very  obvious.  The  laws,  as  they  stood  at  the  end  of  1816,  when 
this  was  written,  could  not  touch  William  Cobbett.  lie  knew 
well  how  to  manage  Irs  strength.  He  risked  no  libels.  He 
dealt  with  general  subjects.  He  called  upon  the  people  to  assem- 
ble and  to  petition.  He  exhorted  the  people  against  the  use  of 
force.  He  sowed  the  dragon's  teeth,  it  is  true,  but  they  did  not 
rise  up  as  armed  me:i.  They  rose  up  in  the  far  more  dangerous 
apparition  of  the  masses,  without  property,  without  education, 
1  Quarterly  Review,  xvi.  p.  275. 


64  HISTORY  OF   THE   PEACE.  [BOOK  I. 

without  leaders  of  any  weight  or  responsibility,  demanding  the 
supreme  legislative  power  —  the  power  of  universal  suffrage. 
The  idea  ceased  to  be  a  theory  —  it  became  a  tremendous  real- 
ity. 

In  the  report  of  the  secret  committee  of  the  House  of  Com- 
Hampden  mons,  presented  on  the  19th  February,  1817,  tb' 
Clubs.  Hampden  Clubs  are  thus  described  :  *  — 

"The  first  thing  which  has  here  forced  itself  upon  their  obsei- 
vation  is  the  widely  diffused  ramification  of  a  system  of  clubs, 
associated  professedly  for  the  purpose  of  parliamentary  reform, 
upon  the  most  extended  principle  of  univer-al  suffrage  and  annual 
parliaments.  These  clubs  in  general  designate  themselves  by 
the  same  name  of  Hampden  Club*.  On  the  professed  object  of 
their  institution,  they  appear  to  be  in  communication  and  connec- 
tion with  the  club  of  that  name  in  London. 

*'  It  appears  to  be  part  of  the  system  of  these  clubs  to  pro- 
mote an  extension  of  clubs  of  the  same  name  and  nature  so 
widely  as,  if  possible,  to  include  eveiy  village  in  the  kingdom. 
The  leading  members  are  active  in  the  circulation  of  publication 
likely  to  promote  their  object.  Petitions,  ready  prepared,  have 
been  sent  down  from  the  metropolis  to  all  societies  in  the  country 
disposed  to  receive  them.  The  communication  between  these 
clubs  takes  place  by  the  mission  of  delegates  ;  delegates  from 
these  clubs  in  the  country  have  assembled  in  London,  and  are  ex- 
pected to  assemble  again  early  in  March.  Whatever  may  be  the 
real  objects  of  these  clubs  in  general,  your  committee  have  no  hes- 
itation in  stating,  from  information  on  which  they  place  full  reli- 
ance, that  in  far  the  greater  number  of  them,  and  particularly  in 
those  which  are  established  in  the  great  manufacturing  districts  of 
Lancashire,  Leicestershire,  Nottinghamshire,  and  Derbyshire, 
and  which  are  composed  of  the  lower  order  of  artisans,  nothing 
short  of  a  revolution  is  the  object  expected  and  avowed." 

The  clear  and  honest  testimony  of  Samuel  Bamford  shows 
that,  in  this  early  period  of  their  history,  the  Hampden  Clubs 
limited  their  object  to  the  attainment  of  parliamentary  reform  — 
a  sweeping  reform,  indeed,  but  not  what  is  understood  by  the  term 
"  revolution."  2  Bamford  was  secretary  to  one  of  these  clubs,  es- 
tablished at  Middleton  in  1816.  The  members  contributed  each 
a  penny  a  week ;  their  numbers  increased  ;  and  they  held  their 
meetings  in  a  chapel  which  had  been  previously  occupied  by  a 
society  of  Methodists.  They  were  called  "  reformers  "  —  not  rad- 
ical reformers,  but  simply  reformers.  Meetings  of  delegates  from 
other  districts  were  held  in  this  chapel ;  an'l  on  the  16th  Decem- 
ber, 1816,  they  resolved  to  send  out  missionaries  to  disseminate 
the  principles  of  reform.  On  the  1st  January,  1817,  a  meeting 

i  Hansard,  xxxv.  p.  443.  2  Passages  in  the  Life  of  a  Radical,  i.  ch.  ii. 


CHAP.  V.]  HAMPDEN  CLUBS.  65 

of  delegates  from  twenty-one  petitioning  bodies  was  held  at  the 
Middleton  Chapel,  when  resolutions  were  passed,  declaratory  of 
the  right  of  every  male,  above  eighteen  years  of  age,  and  who 
paid  taxes,  to  vote  for  the  election  of  members  of  parliament,  and 
that  parliaments  should  be  elected  annually.  '•  Such,"  he  adds, 
"  were  the  moderate  views  and  wishes  of  the  reformers  of  those 
days  as  compared  with  the  present Some  of  the  nos- 
trum-mongers of  the  present  day  would  have  been  made  short 
work  of  by  the  reformers  of  that  time  ;  they  would  not  have 
been  tolerated  for  more  than  one  speech,  but  handed  over  to  the 
civil  power.  It  was  not  until  we  became  infested  by  spies,  in- 
cendiaries, and  their  dupes  —  distracting,  misleading,  and  betray- 
ing —  that  physical  force  was  mentioned  amongst  us.  After  that, 
our  moral  power  waned ;  and  what  we  gained  by  the  accession 
of  demagogues,  we  lost  by  their  criminal  violence  and  the  es- 
trangement of  real  friends."  It  would  appear,  however,  that  in 
Scotland,  at  a  very  early  stage  of  the  proceedings  of  reform  clubs 
—  that  is,  in  December,  1816  —  the  mode  in  which  large  masses 
of  men  ordinarily  look  for  the  accomplishment  of  political 
changes  was  not  so  cautiously  kept  out  of  view.  In  the  proceed- 
ings in  the  High  Court  of  Justiciary,  in  Edinburgh,  early  in 
1817,  against  two  persons  for  administering  unlawful  oaths,  the 
obligation  of  the  members  of  these  reform  clubs  was  shown  to 
run  thus :  *  "  I  do  voluntarily  swear  that  I  will  persevere  in  my  en- 
deavoring to  form  a  brotherhood  of  affection  amongst  Britons  of 
every  description,  who  are  considered  worthy  of  confidence  ;  and 
that  I  will  persevere  in  my  endeavors  to  obtain  for  all  the  peo- 
ple in  Great  Britain  and  Ireland,  not  disqualified  by  crimes  or 
insanity,  the  elective  franchise,  at  the  age  of  twenty-one,  with 
free  and  equal  representation  and  annual  parliaments ;  and  that  I 
will  support  the  same  to  the  utmost  of  my  power,  either  by  mor- 
al or  physical  strength,  as  the  case  may  require :  and  I  do  further 
swear,  that  neither  hopes,  fears,  rewards,  nor  punishments,  shall 
induce  me  to  inform  on,  or  give  evidence  against,  any  member 
or  members,  collectively  or  individually,  for  any  act  or  expres- 
sion done  or  made,  in  or  out,  in  this  or  similar  societies,  under 
the  punishment  or  death,  to  be  inflicted  on  me  by  any  member 
or  members  of  such  societies." 

Of  the  Hampden  Club  of  London,  Sir  Francis  Burdett  was 
the  chairman.  Vanity,  as  well  as  misery,  "  makes  a  man  ac- 
quainted with  strange  bedfellows."  Bamfbrd,  at  the  beginning 
of  1817,  came  to  London  as  a  delegate  from  the  Middleton  Club, 
to  attend  a  great  meeting  of  delegates  to  be  assembled  in  Lon- 
don. The  Crown  and  Anchor  Tavern  was  the  scene  of  these 
deliberations.  There  was  Major  Cartwright  in  the  chair  —  a 
1  State  Trials,  xxxiii.  p.  147. 

VOL.   II.  5 


66  HISTORY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [Boos  L 

placid  enthusiast,  sincere  in  his  "belief  that  unmingled  good  would 
be  the  result  of  the  great  experiment  which  he  had  so  long  ad- 
vocated. His  chief  supporters  were  Cobbett,  with  his  shrewd 
self-possession  and  "  bantering  jollity ; "  and  Hunt,  —  "  orator 
Hunt,"  as  he  was  called,  —  the  incarnation  of  an  empty,  bluster- 
ing, restless,  ignorant,  and  selfish  demagogue.  The  great  baronet 
was  absent,  and  his  absence  provoked  no  little  comment.  But  he 
was  accessible  in  his  own  mansion  ;  and  the  hard-handed  dele- 
gates had  an  interview  with  this  "  imp  of  fame,"  in  his  dressing- 
gown  and  white  cotton  stockings  hanging  about  his  long  spare 
legs,  with  a  "  manner  dignified  and  civilly  familiar ;  submitting 
to,  rather  than  seeking  conversation  with,  men  of  our  class." l 
Samuel  Bamford  was  awe-struck  by  the  passionate  bellowing  of 
Hunt,  frozen  by  the  proud  condescension  of  Sir  Francis  Burdett, 
but  charmed  by  the  unaffected  cordiality  of  Lord  Cochrane. 
These  were  the  chief  actors  in  the  procession  scenes  of  the  popu- 
lar drama  that  was  then  under  rehearsal.  Other  and  more  im- 
portant parts  were  filled  quite  as  appropriately.  The  graphic 
descriptions  of  a  poor  delega'e  weaver,  who  saw  the  secret  work- 
ings of  this  drama,  are  as  much  matter  of  real  history  as  the  de- 
bates of  senators  and  the  reports  of  secret  committees :  2  "  Several 
times  I  attended  meetings  of  trades'  clubs,  and  other  public  as- 
semblages of  the  working-men.  They  would  generally  be  found 
in  a  large  room,  an  elevated  seat  being  placed  for  the  chairman. 
On  first  opening  the  door,  the  place  seemed  dimmed  by  a  suffo- 
cating vapor  of  tobacco,  curling  from  the  cups  of  long  pipes,  and 
issuing  from  the  mouths  of  the  smokers,  in  clouds  of  abominable 
odor,  like  nothing  in  the  world  more  than  one  of  the  unclean 
fogs  of  their  streets ;  though  the  latter  were  certainly  less  offen- 
sive, and  probably  less  hurtful.  Every  man  would  have  his 
half-pint  of  porter  before  him ;  many  would  he  speaking  at  once, 
and  the  hum  and  confusion  would  be  such  as  gave  an  idea  of 
there  being  more  talkers  than  thinkers  —  more  speakers  than 
listeners.  Presently,  '  Order  ! '  would  be  called,  and  compara- 
tive silence  would  ensue  ;  a  speaker,  stranger  or  citizen,  would 
be  announced  with  much  courtesy  and  compliment ; '  Hear,  hear, 
hear  I '  would  follow,  with  clapping  of  hands,  and  knocking  of 
knuckles  on  the  tables  till  the  half-pints  danced  ;  then  a  speech, 
with  compliments  to  some  brother-orator  or  popular  statesman ; 
next  a  resolution  in  favor  of  parliamentary  reform,  and  a  speech 
to  second  it ;  an  amendment  on  some  minor  point  would  follow ; 
a  seconding  of  that ;  a  breach  of  order  by  some  individual  of 
warm  temperament ;  half  a  dozen  would  rise  to  set  him  right ; 
a  dozen  to  put  them  down  ;  and  the  vociferation  and  gesticula- 
tion would  become  loud  and  confounding.  The  door  opens,  and 
i  Bainford,  i.  p.  21.  2  Ibid.  p.  23. 


CHAP.  V.]     CLUB-MEETING  DESCRIBED.  — SPENCEANS.     67 

two  persons  of  middle  stature  enter ;  the  uproar  is  changed  to 
applause,  and  a  round  of  huzzas  welcome  the  new-comers.  A 
stranger  like  myself  inquiring  who  is  he,  the  foremost  and  better 
dressed  one  ?  would  be  answere;! :  '  That  gentleman  is  Mr.  Wat- 
son the  elder,  who  was  lately  charged  with  high  treason,  and  is 
now  under  bail  to  answer  an  indictment  for  a  misdemeanor  in 
consequence  of  his  connection  with  the  late  meeting  at  Spa- 
tields.'  The  person  spoken  of  would  be  supposed  to  be  about 
fifty  years  of  age,  with  somewhat  of  a  polish  in  his  gait  and 
manner,  and  a  degree  of  respectability  and  neatness  in  his  dress. 
He  was  educated  for  a  genteel  profession,  that  of  a  surgeon  ;  had 
practised  it,  and  had  in  consequence  moved  in  a  sphere  more  high 
than  his  present  one.  He  had  probably  a  better  heart  than  head ; 
the  latter  liad  failed  to  bear  him  up  in  his  station,  and  the  ardor 
of  the  former  had  just  before  hurried  him  into  transactions  from 
the  consequences  of  which  he  has  not  yet  escaped.  His  son  at 
this  time  was  concealed  in  London,  a  large  reward  having  been 
offered  for  his  apprehension.  The  other  man  was  Preston,  a  co- 
operator  with  Watson,  Hooper,  and  others  in  late  riots.  He  was 
about  middle  age,  of  ordinary  appearance,  dressed  as  an  opera- 
tive, and  walked  with  the  help  of  a  stick.  I  could  not  but  en- 
tertain a  sliiihtful  opinion  of  the  intellect  and  trustworthiness  of 
these  two  men,  when,  on  a  morning  or  two  afterwards,  at  break- 
fast with  me  and  Mitchell,  they  narrated  with  seeming  pride  and 
Batia&Ction  their  several  parts  during  the  riots.  Preston  had 
mounted  a  wall  of  the  Tower,  and  summoned  the  guard  to  sur- 
render. The  men  gazed  at  him  —  laughed  ;  no  one  fired  a  shot 
—  and  soon  after  he  fell  down,  or  was  pulled  off  by  his  com- 
panions, who  thought,  no  doubt,  he  had  acted  tool  long  enough." 

The  "  lale  meeting  at  Spa-fields  "  here  alluded  to  —  the  lead- 
ers of  that  meeting  who  loomed  upon  the  Middleton  delegate  out 
of  the  reeking  tobacco  fog  of  a  low  tavern  —  were  destined  to 
become  of  historical  importance.  The  general  liberties  of  the 
country  were  suspended,  chiefly  through  dread  of  the  conspiracies 
of  such  men  as  the  surgeon  "  with  somewhat  of  a  polish  in  his 
gait  and  manner,"  and  the  operative  who  "  walked  with  the  help 
of  a  stick." 

The  surgeon  and  the  operative  were  leading  members  of  a 
society  called  the  "  Spencean  Philanthropists."  They 

i      •        i     ii  !•  ii_    *       c          A/TO  Spenceans. 

derived  their  name  from  that  of  a  Mr.  hpence,  a 
schoolmaster  in  Yorkshire,  who  had  conceived  a  plan  for  making 
the  nation  happy,  by  causing  all  the  lands  of  the  country  to 
become  the  property  of  the  state,  which  state  should  divide  all 
the  produce  for  the  support  of  the  people.  The  schoolmaster 
was  an  honest  enthusiast,  who  fearlessly  submitted  his  plan  to 
the  consideration  of  all  lovers  of  their  species,  and  had  the  mis- 


68  HISTORY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [BOOK  I. 

fortune  to  be  prosecuted  for  its  promulgation  in  1800.  In  1816, 
"  Spence's  Plan "  was  revived,  and  the  Society  of  Spencean 
Philanthropists  was  instituted,  who  held  "  sectional  meetings." 
and  di-cussed  "  subjects  calculated  to  enlighten  the  human  un- 
derstanding." This  great  school  of  philosophy  had  its  separate 
academies,  as  London  was  duly  informed  by  various  announce- 
ments, at  "  the  Cock  in  Grafton  Street,  Soho  ; "  and  "  the  Mul- 
berry Tree,  Moorfields  ; "  and  "  the  Nag's  Head,  Carnaby  Mar- 
ket ; "  and  "  No.  8  Lumber  Street,  Borough."  At  these  temples 
of  benevolence,  where  "  every  individual  is  admitted,  free  of 
expense,  who  will  conduct  himself  with  decorum,"  it  is  not  un- 
likely that  some  esoteric  doctrines  were  canvassed,  such  as,  that 
"  it  was  an  easy  matter  to  upset  government,  if  handled  in  a 
proper  manner." 1  The  committee  of  the  Spenceans  openly 
meddled  with  sundry  grave  questions  besides  that  of  a  commu- 
nity in  land ;  and  amongst  other  notable  projects,  petitioned  par- 
liament to  do  away  with  machinery.  They  had  not  advanced  to 
the  more  recondite  knowledge  of  the  St.  Simoniens  of  France, 
nor  to  that  of  the  disciples  of  "  the  new  social  system,"  2  as  ex- 
pounded by  M.  Louis  Blanc.  But  they  had  many  very  pretty 
theories,  all  founded  upon  the  breaking  up  of  the  unequal  dis- 
tribution of  individual  property  ;  which  theories  are  sometimes 
produced  by  the  philanthropists  of  our  own  day  as  prodigious 
discoveries.  Amongst  these  otherwise  harmless  fanatics  some 
dangerous  men  had  established  themselves  —  such  as  Thistle- 
wood,  who  subsequently  paid  the  penalty  of  five  years  of  mania- 
cal plotting ;  and  some,  also,  who  were  clearly  in  communication 
with  the  police,  and  hounded  on  the  weak  disciples  of  the  Cock 
in  Grafton  Street,  and  the  Mulberry  Tree  in  Moorfields,  to  acts 
of  more  real  danger  to  themselves  than  to  the  public  safety.  If 
we  are  to  believe  the  chief  evidence  in  these  transactions 8  — 
John  Castle,  a  man  of  the  most  disreputable  character,  who  be- 
came a  witness  against  the  leading  Spencean  Philanthropists  — 
they  had  murderous  designs  of  sharp  machines  for  destroying 
cavalry,  and  plans  for  suffocating  quiet  soldiers  in  their  barracks, 
destroying  them  as  boys  burn  wasps'  nests;  and  schemes  for  tak- 
ing the  Tower,  and  barricading  London  Bridge,  to  prevent  the 
artillery  coming  from  Woolwich.  And  there  were  to  be  five 
commanders  to  effect  all  these  great  movements  of  strategy,  — 
Mr.  Thistlewood,  Mr.  Watson  the  elder,  and  Mr.  Watson  the 
younger,  Mr.  Castle,  and  Mr.  Preston,  who  came  the  last  in  dig- 
nity ''  because  he  was  lame."  And  then  there  was  to  be  a  commit- 
tee of  public  safety,  who  were  to  be  called  together  after  the  sol- 
diers were  subdued  —  twenty-four  good  and  true  men  —  amongst 

i  State  Trials,  xxxii.  pp.  215,  216.  2  Organisation  du  Travail,  1845. 

«  State  Trials,  p.  218,  &c. 


CHAP.  V.|  MEETING  AT   SPA-FIELDS.  69 

whom  were  l  "  Sir  Francis  Burdett,  the  lord  mayor  [Alderman 
Wood],  Lord  Cochrane,  Mr.  Hunt,  Major  Cartwright,  Gale 
Jones,  Roger  O'Connor,  one  Squire  Fawkes  of  Barnbury  Grange 
in  Yorkshire,  a  person  of  the  name  of  Sam  Brookes,  Thompson 
on  Holborn  Hill,  the  two  Evanses,  Watson,  and  Thistlewood." 
And  then  they  calculated  at  what  amount  of  public  expense  they 
could  buy  the  soldiers,  by  giving  them  each  a  hundred  guineas  ; 
and  upon  an  accurate  computation,  it  was  found  that  the  pur- 
chase-money would  be  "  somewhere  about  two  millions,  which 
would  be  nothing  in  comparison  with  the  national  debt,  which 
would  be  wiped  off."  2  With  this  preparation,  if  we  may  believe 
the  very  questionable  evidence  of  Mr.  Castle,  a  meeting  was  held 
at  Spa-fields,  on  the  15th  November.  Thirty  years  ago,  the 
district  known  as  Spa-fields,  now  covered  with  dwellings  of 
industry  and  comfortable  residences  of  the  middle  classes,  was  a 
large  unenclosed  space ;  and  a  public-house  was  there,  called  by 
the  mysterious  name  of  Merlin's  Cave  ;  and  Mr.  Hunt  carne  in 
a  chariot  with  the  Watsons,  and  harangued  a  mob  from  the 
chariot-roof,  attended  with  a  flag  and  cockades,  and  "  every- 
thing handsome."  And  after  adjourning  the  meeting  for  a  fort- 
night, Mr.  Hunt  and  the  chariot  went  away,  drawn  by  the  mob  ; 
and  the  mob  running  the  chariot  against  a  wall,  they  all  got  out 
and  walked.  So  innocently  passed  the  first  Spa-fields  meeting  — 
innocently,  save  that  at  a  dinner  at  Mr.  Hunt's  hotel  in  Bouverie 
Street,  where,  as  he  represented  the  matter,  the  Philanthropists 
thrust  themselves  upon  him  very  much  against  his  will  —  the 
betrayer  Castle  gave  a  toast,  which  is  too  infamous  to  be  re- 
peated here,  and  was  threatened  to  be  turned  out  of  the  room, 
but  quietly  remained,  and  went  into  what  was  described  as  "  a 
fox-sleep." 

But  the  2d  December,  the  day  to  which  the  first  meeting  was 
adjourned,  closed  not  so  peaceably.  Mr.  Hunt  came  to  town  from 
Essex  in  his  tandem,  and,  as  he  passed  along  Cheapside,  at 
"  twenty  minutes  to  one  o'clock,"  he  was  stopped  by  Mr.  Castle, 
who  was  moving  along  with  a  considerable  crowd ;  and  the 
worthy  man  told  him  that  the  meeting  had  been  broken  up  two 
hours,  and  they  were  going  to  the  Tower,  which  had  been  in 
their  possession  for  an  hour.  The  country  squire,  to  whom  "  the 
boisterous  hallooing  of  multitudes  was  more  pleasing  than  the 
chinkling  of  the  plough-traces,  the  bleating  of  lambs,  or  the  song 
of  the  nightingale  "  —  in  these  terms  Cobbett  defended  his  friend 
for  his  aspirations  after  mob  popularity  —  was  not  weak  enough 
to  believe  the  tempter ;  and  his  tandem  went  on  safely  to  Spa- 
fields,  where  the  greatest  number  of  people  were  collected  to- 
gether that  he  had  ever  beheld.  But  more  active  reformers 
i  State  Trials,  p.  233.  *  ibid.  p.  234. 


70  HISTORY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [BOOK  I. 

were  in  Spa-fields  before  Mr.  Hunt.  The  Spencean  Philanthro- 
pists had  provided  a  wagon  for  their  own  operations,  and  arrived 
on  the  ground  considerably  before  the  appointed  hour  of  meeting, 
with  banners  and  inscriptions,  one  of  which  was,  "  The  brave 
soldiers  are  our  friends."  These  men  also  brought  arms  and 
ammunition,  which  they  deposited  in  their  wagon.  Mr.  Watson 
the  elder  commenced  a  sufficiently  violent  address,  and  then  his 
son  followed  him.  The  young  madman,  after  declaiming  against 
the  uselessness  of  petition,  cried  out :  "  If  they  will  not  give  us 
what  we  want,  shall  we  not  take  it  ?  Are  you  willing  to  take 
it  ?  Will  you  go  and  take  it  ?  If  I  jump  down  amongst  you, 
will  you  come  and  take  it  ?  Will  you  follow  me  ?  "  And  as  at 
every  question  the  encouraging  "  Yes  "  became  louder  and  louder, 
and  put  down  the  dissentient  "  No,"  he  jumped  from  the  wagon, 
seized  a  tri-colored  flag,  and  away  rushed  the  mob  to  take  the 
Tower.  Two  resolute  men,  the  chief  clerk  of  Bow  Street  and 
a  Bow  Street  officer,  had  the  boldness  to  attack  this  mob,  and 
destroyed  one  of  their  banners  without  any  injury  to  themselves. 
The  work  of  mischief  necessarily  went  on.  The  young  fanatic 
led  his  followers  to  the  shop  of  Mr.  Beckwith,  a  gunsmith  on 
Snow  Hill ;  and,  rushing  in,  demanded  arms.  A  gentleman  in 
the  shop  remonstrated  with  him,  and,  without  any  pause,  was 
immediately  shot  by  him.  Instantly,  some  compunction  seems 
to  have  come  over  this  furious  leader,  and  he  offered  to  examine 
the  wounded  man,  saying  he  was  himself  a  surgeon.  The  assas- 
sin was  secured  ;  but  the  mob,  who  destroyed  and  plundered  the 
shop,  soon  released  him,  and  proceeded  along  Cheapside,  where 
they  fired  their  recently  acquired  arms,  like  children  with  a  new 
plaything.  They  marched  through  the  Royal  Exchange,  where 
they  were  met  by  the  lord  mayor,  and  several  were  secured. 
The  city  magistrates  on  this  occasion  behaved  with  a  firmness 
which  admirably  contrasted  with  the  pusillanimity  of  their  pred- 
ecessors in  the  riots  of  1780.  The  courage  of  the  Lord  Mayor 
and  of  Sir  James  Shaw  is  worthy  of  honorable  record  ;  and  it 
shows  not  only  the  insignificancy  of  the  so-called  conspiracy,  its 
want  of  coherence  and  of  plan,  but  the  real  power  of  virtue  in 
action  to  put  down  ordinary  tumult.  Sir  James  Shaw  says : l 
"  On  the  2d  of  December  last,  I  was  at  the  Royal  Exchange  at 
half-past  twelve ;  I  saw  the  mob  first  in  Cornhill ;  the  lord 
mayor  and  I  went  in  pursuit  of  them ;  they  crossed  the  front  of 
the  Royal  P^xchange  ;  we  rushed  through  the  Royal  Exchange 
to  take  them  in  front  on  the  other  side  :  the  Lord  Mayor  and  1, 
having  received  information  of  prior  occurrences,  determined  on 
putting  them  down.  I  seized  several  of  them,  and  one  flag  of 
three  colors,  extended  on  a  very  long  pole.  I  did  not  then  per- 
i  State  Trials. 


CHAP.  V.]  EIOT   SUBDUED.  71 

ceive  any  arms The  Lord  Mayor  and  I  went  to  meet  the 

mob  with  Mr.  White  and  two  constables  ;  we  got  five  constables 
in  all ;  the  whole  party  consisted  of  eight." 

Such  is  the  way  in  which  the  beginnings  of  seditions  ought  to 
be  met.  Firmness  such  as  this  would  have  saved  Bristol  in 
1832.  After  a  further  plunder  of  gunsmiths'  shops  in  the  Mino- 
ries,  and  that  summoning  of  the  Tower  by  some  redoubted  and 
unknown  champion,  who,  Bamford  tells  us,  was  Preston,  the 
insurrection  fell  to  pieces,  altogether  from  the  want  of  cohesion 
in  the  materials  of  which  it  was  composed.  The  only  blood  shed 
was  that  of  the  gentleman  in  Mr.  Beckwith's  shop,  who  event- 
ually recovered.  An  unfortunate  sailor  was  convicted  of  the 
offence  of  plunder  at  the  shop  on  Snow  Hill,  and  was  hanged. 
The  younger  Watson  escaped  from  his  pursuers. 

The  narrative  which  we  have  thus  briefly  given  is 'taken  from 
the  facts  recorded  in  the  voluminous  trial  of  the  elder  Watson, 
in  the  summer  of  1817,  on  a  charge  of  high  treason  connected 
with  this  Spa-fields  meeting.  This  is  not  the  place  to  notice  the 
course  of  that  trial,  which  ended  in  the  acquittal  of  the  prisoner; 
nor  to  anticipate  tlie  account  of  the  legislative  measures  of  the 
spring  of  1817,  which  were  mainly  founded  upon  the  reports  of 
secret  committees,  in  which  this  frantic  riot  was  described  as  a 
most  formidable  organization  of"  desperate  men,1  who  calculated 
without  reasonable  ground  upon  defection  in  their  opposers,  and 
upon  active  support  from  those  multitudes  whose  distress  they 
had  wilnessed,  and  whom  they  had  vainly  instigated  to  revolt." 
The  parliamentary  reports  speak  of  these  transactions  —  in 
which  a  mighty  government  was  to  be  overthrown,  and  a  vast 
city,  with  its  formidable  array  of  police  and  soldiery,  utterly 
subdued  by  five  fanatics  hounded  on  by  a  spy  —  with  a  solemnity 
which  is  now  almost  ludicrous.  A  few  passages  from  the  report 
of  the  secret  committee  of  the  Lords  will  suffice  :  *  — 

"  A  traitorous  conspiracy  has  been  formed  in  the  metropolis 
for  the  purpose  of  overthrowing,  by  means  of  a  general  insur- 
rection, the  established  government,  laws,  and  constitution  of  this 
kingdom,  and  of  effecting  a  general  plunder  and  division  of 

property Various  schemes  were  formed  for  this  purpose. 

Amongst  them  was  a  general  and  forcible  liberation  of  all  per- 
sons confined  in  the  different  prisons  in  the  metropolis It 

was  also  proposed  to  set  fire  to  various  barracks,  and  steps  were 
taken  to  ascertain  and  prepare  means  of  effecting  this  purpose. 
An  attack  upon  the  Tower  and  Bank,  and  other  points  of  impor- 
tance, WMS,  after  previous  consultations,  finally  determined  upon. 
Pikes  and  arms  to  a  certain  extent  were  actually  provided,  and 
leaders  were  named,  among  whom  the  points  of  attack  were  dis- 

1  Commons'  Report:  Hansard,  xxxv.  p.  443.         2  Hansard,  xxxv.  p.  411, 


72  HISTORY   OF   THE  PEACE.  [BOOK  I. 

tributed Tt  appears  quite  certain  that  the  acts  of  plunder 

which  were  perpetrated  for  the  purpose  of  procuring  arms,  and 
the  other  measures  of  open  insurrection  which  followed,  were 
not  accidental  or  unpremeditated,  but  had  been  deliberately  pre- 
concerted as  parts  of  a  general  plan  of  rebellion  and  revolu- 
tion." 

Within  a  week  after  these  occurrences  the  corporation  of  the 
Address  of  city  of  London  presented  to  the  throne  an  address  and 
the  city.  petition  from  the  lord  mayor,  aldermen,  and  commons, 
in  which  they  set  forth  the  "  grievances "  of  the  country,  and 
the  necessity  for  parliamentary  reform.  The  lord  mayor  was 
a  decided  political  partisan,  and  the  majority  of  the  corporation 
held  then  what  were  called  liberal  opinions.  But  it  is  never- 
theless pretty  evident  that  if  the  events  of  the  2d  of  December 
had  been  such  as  to  produce  real  terror  amongst  the  staid  in- 
habitants of  the  city,  this  address  would  either  not  have  been 
presented,  or  have  been  met  by  some  counter-declaration  of 
opinion. 

In  1814,  when  the  long  revolutionary  war  appeared  to  be 
ended,  and  men's  minds  were  in  a  fever  of  iov  at  the 

Real  dangers.  ,.  .  H- 

extraordinary  triumphs  that  conducted  the  allied  ar- 
mies to  Paris,  the  corporation  of  London  went  up  with  an  ad- 
dress of  congratulation  to  the  Prince  Regent,  in  which  they  say : 
"  We  cannot  but  look  back  with  the  highest  admiration  at  the 
firmness,  the  wisdom,  and  the  energy  which  have  been  exercised 
by  our  beloved  country  during  this  long  and  arduous  struggle." 
In  1816,  the  same  corporation,  in  the  address  of  complaint  to  the 
throne,  says  :  "  Our  grievances  are  the  natural  effect  of  rash  and 
ruinous  wars,  unjustly  commenced  and  pertinaciously  persisted 
in."  The  inconsistencies  of  a  large  popular  body  are  not  to  be 
examined  too  severely  ;  the  change  of  tone  ought  to  have  shown 
the  government  that  it  had  its  origin  in  some  deep-rooted  evil. 
The  truth  was,  that  the  people  —  using  the  term  in  its  largest 
sense  —  had  ceased  to  sympathize  with  the  government.  In 
1814,  and  indeed  during  the  fiercest  years  of  the  contest  with 
Napoleon,  the  people  were  borne  along  with  the  government  by 
the  irrepressible  energy  of  our  national  character.  The  peace 
came,  and  the  government,  instead  of  marching  at  the  head  of 
the  people  from  victory  to  victory,  was  engaged  in  a  struggle 
with  the  people  for  the  maintenance  of  the  war  system  of  taxa- 
tion and  lavish  expenditure,  when  the  war  excitement  was  passed 
away.  Corn-laws  carried  amidst  riots —  property  tax  maintained 
for  a  season,  and  then  wrested  out  of  their  hands  —  large  mili- 
tary establishments  continued  —  sinecures  upheld  and  defended 
—  reckless  extravagance  in  the  highest  places  —  these  were  the 
things  that  the  most  sober  and  reasonable  of  the  middle  classes 


CHAP.  V.]  REAL  DANGERS.  73 

felt  to  constitute  a  cruel  injustice  —  which  those  below  them  con- 
founded with  the  sanative  course  of  legislative  and  executive 
authority.  The  nation  was  defrauded  of  its  reasonable  expecta- 
tions. The  real  danger,  therefore,  was  not  so  much  that  the 
people  should  be  irritated  and  misled  by  mob-leaders  and  unscru- 
pulous writers,  as  that  a  general  feeling  should  grow  up  in  the 
nation,  that  government  was  a  power  antagonistic  to  the  people 
—  a  power  to  be  striven  against  as  against  a  natural  enemy  — 
an  oppressive,  and  not  a  protective  power  —  a  power  of  separate 
and  exclusive  interests  from  the  people  —  a  power  never  to  be 
trusted.  We  speak  advisedly,  and  from  experience,  when  wo 
say  that  this  was  the  general  feeling  of  the  great  bulk  of  the  in- 
dustrious classes,  long  after  the  first  sufferings  that  attended  the 
transition  state  of  peace  had  passed  away.  This  was  the  feeling 
that  was  far  more  dangerous  to  the  national  interests  than  any 
insurrectionary  outbreak  of  the  masses  of  the  working  popula- 
tion. Deluded  these  masses  unquestionably  were  —  acted  upon 
by  demagogues.  On  the  other  hand,  many  amongst  the  upper 
and  middle  classes  were  alarmed  into  a  prostrate  adhesion  to  the 
menacing  policy  of  the  government,  and  were  ready  with  "  lives 
and  fortunes "  to  put  down  the  revolutionary  spirit  which  they 
were  assured  was  working  under  the  guise  of  parliamentary  re- 
form. But,  during  all  this  unhappy  time,  the  government  had  no 
love  from  any  class  —  very  little  respect ;  intense  hate  from 
many — slavish  fear  from  more.  The  government  was  dena- 
tionalizing the  people.  There  was  no  confidence  on  either  side. 
The  wounds  of  the  state  during  the  last  years  of  th«  regency 
were  more  severe  than  the  wounds  of  war,  and  left  deeper  scars. 
The  foundations  of  the  state  were  loosened  ;  there  was  no  cohe- 
sion in  the  materials  out  of  which  the  state  was  built  up.  The 
government  took  the  fearful  course  of  sowing  distrust  of  the  pooi; 
amongst  the  rich.  The  demagogues  did  their  own  counter-work 
of  exciting  hatred  of  the  rich  amongst  the  poor.  It  was  a  sea- 
son of  reciprocal  distrust.  "  Divide  and  govern  "  may  be  a  sale 
maxim  for  subduing  a  faction ;  it  is  the  most  perilous  principle 
for  ruling  a  nation. 


HISTORY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [BOOK  I. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

THE  attack  upon  Algiers  forms  an  episode  in  the  history  of 
the  peace.  This  terrific  assertion  of  the  rights  of  civ- 
ilized states,  as  opposed  to  barbarian  violence  and  ag- 
gression, was,  indeed,  a  consequence  of  the  peace.  The  pirates 
of  the  Mediterranean  were  nourished  in  their  lawless  power  by 
the  jealousies  of  the  maritime  states  of  Europe  ;  and  England  is 
perhaps  not  entirely  free  from  the  reproach  which  was  raised 
against  her  of  having  truckled  to  the  insolent  domination  of  Al- 
giers and  Tunis,  that  she  might  hold  them,  like  ferocious  beasts 
in  her  leash,  ready  to  let  slip  upon  her  maritime  enemies.  War 
calls  forth  as  many  of  the  selfish  as  of  the  heroic  passions.  At 
any  rate,  the  attitude  which  England  assumed  towards  the  Bar 
bary  States,  at  the  termination  of  the  war,  was  wholly  different 
from  that  which  she  had  maintained  during  many  years,  and 
under  many  governments,  whether  in  war  or  in  peace.  Our 
treaties  with  these  states  had  been  of  longer  standing  than  those 
with  any  other  European  power.  The  treaties  with  Algiers, 
Tunis,  and  Tripoli,  date  as  far  back  as  1662.  With  the  excep- 
tion of  one  vigorous  reprisal  for  an  outrage  upon  the  English 
flag  in  1695,  the  greatest  maritime  country  in  the  world  had,  for 
a  century  and  a  half,  exchanged  courtesies  with  the  corsairs,  who 
pot  only  robbed  upon  the  seas,  but  carried  off  the  defenceless 
inhabitants  of  the  Italian  shores  to  the  most  fearful  and  hopeless 
slavery.  With  the  full  knowledge  of  the  extent  of  these  atroci- 
ties, we  continued,  up  to  the  very  end  of  the  war,  to  treat  these 
piratical  governments  with  the  respect  due  only  to  those  states 
which  submit  to  the  law  of  nations.  Lord  Cochrane  stated  in 
parliament  in  1816,  that,  three  or  four  years  before,  the  humiliat- 
ing duty  had  been  imposed  upon  him  of  carrying  rich  presents 
from  our  government  to  the  Dey  of  Algiers ;  and  it  was  even 
asserted,  without  contradiction,  that  a  letter  had  been  addressed 
to  that  chief  pirate  by  the  highest  authority  in  our  country.  All 
this  took  place  with  the  fullest  conviction  that  the  habits  of  the 
barbarian  governments  were  wholly  unchanged;  that  they  were 
the  same  in -the  latter  days  of  George  III.  as  they  were  in  the 
days  of  Charles  II.  "  Algiers,"  says  a  writer  of  1680, lu  is  a 
1  Discourse  touching  Tangier:  printed  in  the  Harleiau  Miscellany. 


CHAP.  VI.]  BARBARY   STATES.  75 

den  of  sturdy  tliieves  formed  into  a  body,  by  which,  after  a  tu- 
multuary sort,  they  govern,  having  the  Grand  Signior  for  their 
protector,  who  supplies  them  with  native  Turks  for  their  soldiery, 
which  is  the  greatest  part  of  their  militia ;  and  they,  in  acknowl- 
edgement, lend  him  their  ships  when  his  affairs  require  it. 
They  are  grown  a  rich  and  powerful  people,  and,  by  a  long  prac- 
tice of  piracy,  become  good  seamen ;  and,  when  pressed  by  our 
men  of  war,  as  of  late  we  have  experimented,  they  fight  and  de- 
fend themselves  like  brave  men,  inferior,  I  am  persuaded,  to  no 
people  whatever.  They  have  no  commerce,  and  so  are  without 
any  taste  of  the  benefits  of  peace ;  whence  their  life  becomes  a 
continual  practice  of  robbery,  and.  like  beasts  of  the  desert,  they 
only  forbear  to  wrong  where  by  fear,  not  honesty,  they  are  de- 
terred." 

And  yet,  however  mean  we  may  justly  consider  this  long 
course  of  our  national  policy  towards  the  Barbary  States,  the  an- 
nihilation of  their  predatory  governments  was  not  an  easy  task 
to  be  accomplished,  nor  a  safe  object  to  be  pursued,  even  if  it 
were  for  a  time  successful.  These  pirates  of  Africa  started  up 
three  hundred  years  ago,  under  the  sway  of  the  Barbarossas,  and 
presented  at  once  to  the  governments  of  Europe  the  daring,  re- 
vengeful, and  cruel  race  that  they  so  long  remained  —  opposed 
to  every  people  —  often  chastised  and  menaced  with  destruction, 
but  rising  unsubdued  from  the  passing  blow,  ready  for  new  deeds 
of  outrage  and  desperation.  A  long  experience  had  shown  that 
although  pledges  of  peace  —  the  release  of  Christian  slaves,  and 
the  renunciation  of  the  future  power  of  making  slaves  —  might 
be  extorted  from  these  states  by  the  burning  of  their  ships  and 
the  destruction  of  their  fortifications,  they  would  not  continue 
the  less  a  government  of  robbers,  returning  to  their  old  trade  in 
utter  want  of  all  other  means  of  existence,  all  other  sources  of 
importance,  all  other  relations  of  confidence  between  the  rulers 
and  the  people.  It  was  clear  that  Algiers,  especially,  would  not 
come  within  the  pale  of  civilization  until  it  was  revolutionized. 
England,  which  had  just  concluded  a  war  against  the  aggrandize- 
ment of  France,  could  not,  with  any  consistency,  have  attempted 
to  plant  her  laws  and  her  language  on  the  African  shores  of  the 
Mediterranean  ;  nor  would  she,  with  her  experience  of  the  diffi- 
culties of  colonization  under  the  most  favorable  circumstances, 
have  endeavored,  amidst  the  jealousies  and  possible  hostilities 
of  Europe,  to  amalgamate  her  own  people  with  the  barbarians 
of  Northern  Africa,  and  thus  to  found  an  orderly,  a  civilized, 
and  a  powerful  nation.  It  would  have  been  no  common  task 
there  to  change  the  habits  of  centuries  ;  to  plant  useful  industry 
in  the  soil  where  only  destructive  rapine  had  flourished ;  to  con- 
nect the  people  with  their  rulers  by  salutary  laws ;  and,  hardest 


76  HISTORY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [BOOK  L 

of  all,  to  defer  something  to  national  habits  and  prejudices, 
whether  in  religion  or  in  morals.  The  task  has  since  been 
attempted  by  another  great  nation,  not  in  the  spirit  of  coloniza- 
tion, but  of  conquest.  It  was  our  task,  in  181 6,  to  take  neither 
course  —  content  to  succor  the  oppressed,  and  to  humiliate  the 
oppressor. 

"  One  day  of  dreadful  occupation  more, 

Ere  England's  gallant  ships 
Shall,  of  their  beauty,  pomp,  and  power  disrobed, 
Like  sea-birds  on  the  sunny  main, 
Rock  idly  in  the  port. 

"  One  day  of  dreadful  occupation  more  ! 

A  work  of  righteousness, 
Yea,  of  sublimest  mercy,  must  be  done  ! 
England  will  break  the  oppressor's  chain, 
And  set  the  captives  free."  * 

At  the  Congress  of  Vienna  the  aggressions  of  the  Barbary 
States  formed  a  natural  subject  of  deliberation.  An  attempt 
was  made  by  some  enthusiasts  to  get  up  a  European  crusade 
against  the  infidel  corsairs.  It  was  perhaps  fortunate  that  the 
congress  had  more  pressing  interests  forced  upon  its  attention. 
We  were  spared  the  fearful  spectacle  of  Christianity  girding  on 
the  sword  of  vengeance,  to  trample  on  the  bleeding  corse  of  an 
adverse  faith.  Civilization  was  content  to  assert  her  rights  with- 
out the  dangerous  admixture  of  religious  zeal.  In  1815  the 
government  of  the  United  States,  whose  ships  had  been  plun- 
dered by  tiie  Algerines,  captured  a  frigate  and  a  brig  belonging 
to  the  Dey,  and  obtained  a  compensation  of  sixty  thousand  dol- 
lars. It  has  been  stated  2  that  this  treaty  saved  the  fleet  of  the 
Dey  from  attack  in  the  harbor  of  Algiers,  —  an  enterprise  which 
had  been  resolved  upon  by  the  government  of  the  United  States 
before  the  expedition  of  Lord  I^xmouth.  In  the  spring  of  1816, 
Lord  Exmouth,  with  a  squadron  under  his  command,  proceeded 
to  Algiers,  Tunis,  and  Tripoli,  where  he  effected  the  release  of 
seventeen  hundred  and  ninety-two  Christian  slaves,  and  negotiated 
treaties  of  peace  and  amity  on  behalf  of  the  minor  powors  in 
the  Mediterranean.  From  Tunis  and  Tripoli  a  declaration  was 
obtained  that  no  Christian  slaves  should  in  future  be  made  by 
either  of  these  powers.  The  Dey  of  Algiers,  however,  refused 
to  agree  to  the  abolition  of  slavery  without  permission  from  the 
Sultan.  Lord  Exmouth  acceded  to  a  suspension  for  three 
months  of  the  Dey's  decision  ;  and  returned  to  England  with 
his  fleet.  One  condition  of  the  treaty  with  Algiers,  then  con- 
cluded by  Lord  Exmouth,  was,  that  the  governments  of  Sicily 

i  Ode  on  the  Battle  of  Algiers,  by  R.         2  Rush's  Residence  at  the  Court  of 
Southey.      First  printed  in  The  Plain     London  in  18J8,  p.  237. 
Englishman,  iii.  p.  427 


CHAP.  VI.J       LORD  EQMOUTH'S  EXPEDITION.  77 

and  Sardinia  should  pay  ransom  for  the  release  of  their  subjects  ;* 
and,  in  point  of  fact,  they  did  so  pay,  to  the  extent  of  nearly 
four  hundred  thousand  dollars.  This  clause  of  the  treaty  was 
justly  denounced  in  the  British  parliament,1  as  an  acknowledg- 
ment of  the  right  of  depredation -exercised  by  the  barbarians. 
In  the  debate  on  this  occasion,  Lord  Cochrane  maintained  2  "  that 
two  sail  of  the  line  would  have  been  sufficient  to  compel  the  Dey 
of  Algiers  to  accede  to  any  terms.  The  city  of  Algiers  was  on 
the  sea-shore,  the  water  was  deep  enough  for  first-rates  to  con.e 
up  to  the  very  walls,  and  those  were  mounted  only  with  a  few 
pieces  of  cannon,  with  the  use  of  which  the  barbarians  were 
scarcely  acquainted."  Lord  Cochrane  qualified  this  opinion  in. 
the  subsequent  session.  It  was  fortunate  that  such  an  assertion, 
was  not  the  cause  of  an  inadequate  preparation  and  a  fatal  re- 
pulse. Lord  Exmouth  had  his  own  observation  for  his  guide. 
The  event  proved  that  the  place,  as  well  as  the  people,  had  re- 
mained unchanged  during  a  long  course  of  years.  The  city  still 
preserved  ils  ancient  strength ;  the  people,  their  accustomed  dar- 
ing and  ferocity. 

Lord  Exmouth  returned  home  from  the  Mediterranean  in 
June  1816.  It  would  appear  that  the  great  possibility  of  the 
refusal  of  the  Dey  of  Algiers  altogether  to  renounce  the  prac- 
tice of  making  slaves,  was  not  contemplated  as  a  reason  for  hos- 
tile preparations.  The  fleet  of  Lord  Exmouth  was  dismantled ; 
the  crews  were  paid  off  and  disbanded.  A  sudden  outrage, 
which  occurred  even  before  Lord  Exmouth  quitted  the  Mediter- 
ranean, but  which  did  not  then  come  to  his  knowledge,  was  the 
obvious  cause  of  the  change  in  the  determination  of  our  govern- 
ment. In  1806  we  contracted  with  the  Dey  for  the  occupation 
of  Bona,  a  town,  with  a  capacious  harbor,  in  the  regency  of 
Algiers,  for  the  purpose  of  the  coral  fishery  being  carried  on 
under  the  protection  of  our  flag.  Here,  on  the  23d  of  May,  it 
being  the  season  of  the  fishery,  were  assembled  a  great  number 
of  boats  from  the  Italian  shores,  and  as  that  day  was  the  festival 
of  the  Ascension,  the  peaceful  crews  were  preparing  to  hear 
mass ;  suddenly  a  gun  was  fired  from  the  Algerine  castle,  and  a 
large  body  of  infantry  and  cavalry  rushed  upon  the  unfortunate 
fishers  who  had  landed,  and  fired  upon  those  who  remained  within 
the  harbor  in  their  boats ;  the  guns  from  the  forts  also  joined  in 
this  fearful  massacre.  The  British  flag  was  torn  down  and 
trampled  under  foot,  and  the  house  of  our  vice-consul  was  pil- 
laged. It  would  appear  that  this  was  no  concerted  act  of  the 
Algerine  government,  but  a  sudden  movement  of  fanaticism  on 
the  part  of  the  licentious  soldiery.  Be  this  as  it  may,  an  expe- 
dition against  Algiers  was  instantly  determined  upon  by  the  Brit- 
1  Hansard,  xxxiv.  p.  1147.  «  Ibid.  p.  1149. 


78  HISTORY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [BOOK  L 

'  ish  cabinet.  A  formidable  fleet  was  equipped,  with  the  least  pos- 
sible delay,  at  Portsmouth,  and  crews  were  collected  from  the 
different  guard-ships,  and  volunteers  invited  to  serve  upon  this 
particular  enterprise.  For  once,  a  British  fleet  went  to  sea 
without  recourse  to  the  disgraceful  practice  of  impressment. 
To  render  crews  efficient,  who  were  so  hastily  collected,  and  so 
unused  to  mutual  operations,  was  a  labor  that  required  no  com- 
mon share  of  energy  and  prudence  in  the  commander.  With  a 
part  of  his  squadron,  Lord  Exmouth  sailed  to  Plymouth,  and 
finally  left  that  port  on  the  28th  of  July,  with  a  fleet  consisting 
of  twenty-five  sail  of  large  and  small  ships.  At  Gibraltar,  the 
British  admiral  was  joined  by  the  Dutch  admiral,  Van  Cappel- 
lan,  with  five  frigates  and  a  sloop,  and  having  also  received  a 
reinforcement  of  gun-boats,  he  finally  set  sail  for  Algiers  on  the 
14th.  The  winds  being  adverse,  the  fleet  did  not  arrive  in 
sight  of  Algiers  till  the  27th  of  August.  During  his  course, 
Lord  Exmouth  spoke  the  British  sloop  Prometheus,  which  had 
been  sent  forward  to  bring  off  the  British  consul  from  Algiers  : 
the  family  of  our  public  officer  had  been  rescued,  but  the  consul 
himself  had  been  put  in  chains.  Here  was  a  new  insult  to  be 
avenged. 

A  most  interesting:  and  graphic  narrative  of  the  expedition  to 
Bombard-  Algiers  was  published  by  Mr.  Abraham  Salame,  a 
ment.  native  of  Alexandria,  who  was  taken  out  by  Lord 

Exmouth  to  act  as  his  interpreter.  The  description  of  a  sea- 
fight,  like  the  description  of  a  shipwreck,  is  generally  vague  and 
unsatisfactory,  unless  we  associate  our  interest  with  the  fate  of 
some  one  individual.  Mr.  Salame  was,  at  one  and  the  same  time, 
an  actor  and  a  spectator  in  this  remarkable  contest.  At  five 
o'clock  on  the  morning  of  the  27th,  as  the  fleet  was  nearing 
Algiers,  Salame  put  on  an  English  dress  by  the  advice  of  Lord 
Exmouth,  and  was  furnished  with  two  letters,  one  for  the  Dey, 
the  other  for  the  British  consul.  The  letter  to  the  Dey  de- 
manded the  entire  abolition  of  Christian  slavery ;  the  delivery 
of  all  Christian  slaves  in  the  kingdom  of  Algiers ;  the  restora- 
tion of  all  the  money  that  had  been  paid  for  the  redemption  of 
slaves  by  the  King  of  the  Two  Sicilies  and  the  King  of  Sardinia  ; 
peace  between  Algiers  and  the  Netherlands  ;  and  the  immediate 
liberation  of  the  British  consul,  and  two  boats'  crews  who  had 
been  detained  with  him.  The  commander's  letter  to  the  consul  of 
course  contained  an  assurance  that  every  effort  should  be  made 
for  his  safety;  but  who,  under  such  circumstances,  could  forget 
that  when  the  French  Admiral  Duquesne,  in  1 682,  bombarded 
Algiers,  the  Dey  fastened  the  unhappy  French  consul  to  the 
mouth  of  a  cannon,  and  blew  him  to  atoms,  in  savage  defiance 
of  the  hostile  armament  ?  At  eleven  o'clock  the  interpreter 


CHAP.  VI.]       SECOND  ALGEKINE  EXPEDITION.  79 

reached  the  mole,  in  a  boat  bearing  a  flag  of  truce,  and  deliver- 
ing his  letters  to  the  captain  of  the  port,  demanded  an  answer  to 
the  letter  addressed  to  the  Dey  in  one  hour.  The  AUrerine  en- 
gaged that  an  answer,  if  answer  were  returned  at  all,  should  be 
given  in  two  hours  ;  and  in  the  •  mean  time  the  interpreter  re- 
mained in  a  sufficiently  uncomfortable  situation,  within  pistol- 
phot  of  thousands  of  the  people  who  were  on  the  walls  and  bat- 
teries. He  employed  himself  in  observing  the  situation  of  the 
city,  and  the  strength  of  the  fortifications.  His  description  of 
the  place  differs  very  little  from  that  given  by  Joseph  Pitts1 
more  than  a  century  before.  "  The  houses,"  says  Pitts,  "  are  all 
over  white,  being  flat,  and  covered  with  lime  and  sand  as  floors. 
The  upper  part  of  the  town  is  not  so  broad  as  the  lower  part, 
and  therefore  at  sea  it  looks  just  like  the  top-sail  of  a  ship.  It 
is  a  very  strong  place,  and  well  fortified  with  castles  and  guns. 
There  are  seven  castles  without  the  walls,  and  two  tiers  of  guns 
in  most  of  them ;  but  in  the  greatest  castle,  which  is  on  the  mole 
without  the  gate,  there  are  three  tiers  of  guns,  many  of  them  of 
an  extraordinary  length,  carrying  fifty,  sixty  —  yea,  eighty  pound 
shot.  Besides  all  these  castles,  there  is  at  the  higher  end  of  the 
town,  within  the  walls,  another  castle  with  many  guns.  And, 
moreover,  on  many  places  towards  the  sea  are  great  guns 
planted.  Algiers  is  well  walled,  and  surrounded  with  a  great 
trench.  It  hath  five  gates,  and  some  of  these  have  two,  some 
three  other  gates  within  them ;  and  some  of  them  plated  all 
over  with  thick  iron.  So  that  it  is  made  strong  and  convenient 
for  being  what  it  is  —  a  nest  of  pirates." 

The  interpreter  with  his  flag  of  truce  waited  for  his  answer 
from  eleven  o'clock  till  half-past  two,  but  no  answer  came. 
During  this  time  a  breeze  sprung  up,  the  fleet  advanced  into  the 
bay,  and  lay  to  within  half  a  mile  of  Algiers.  The  interpreter 
then  hoisted  the  signal  that  no  answer  had  been  given,  and  the 
fleet  immediately  began  to  bear  up,  and  every  ship  to  take  her 
position.  Salame  reached  the  Queen  Charlotte,  Lord  Exmouth's 
ship,  in  safety ;  but  he  candidly  acknowledges,  almost  more  dead 
than  alive.  Then  he  saw  the  change  which  conies  over  a  brave 
and  decided  man  at  the  moment  when  resolve  passes  into  action. 
"I  was  quite  surprised  to  see  how  his  lordship  wa* 'altered  from 
what  I  left  him  in  the  morning,  for  I  knew  his  manner  was  in 
general  very  mild ;  and  now  he  seemed  to  me  cdl-jightfid,  as  a 
fierce  lion  which  had  been  chained  in  its  cage  and  was  set  at 
liberty.  With  all  that,  his  lordship's  answer  to  me  was,  '  Never 
mind,  we  shall  see  now ; '  and  at  the  same  time  he  turned 
towards  the  officers,  saying,  '  Be  ready  ! ' '  There  is,  perhaps, 
1  Account  of  the  Religion  and  Manners  of  Mohametans,  1704. 


80  HISTORY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [BOOK  L 

nothing  in  the  history  of  warfare  more  terrific  in  its  consequences 
than  the  first  broadside  that  the  British  fired  at  Algiers.  The 
Queen  Charlotte  passed  through  all  the  batteries  without  firing  a 
gun,  and  took  up  a  position  within  a  hundred  yards  of  the  mole- 
head  batteries.  At  the  first  shot,  which  was  fired  by  the  Alge- 
rines  at  the  impregnable,  Lord  Exmouth  cried  out:  "  That  will 
do ;  fire,  my  fine  fellows  !  "  The  miserable  Algerines  who  were 
looking  on,  as  at  a  show,  with  apparent  indifference  to  the  conse- 
quences, were  swept  away  by  hundreds  by  this  first  fire  from  the 
Queen  Charlotte.  "  There  was  a  great  crowd  of  people  in  every 
part,  many  of  whom,  after  the  first  discharge,  I  saw  running  away 
under  the  walls  like  dogs,  walking  upon  their  feet  and  hands." 

From  a  quarter  before  three  o'clock  till  nine,  the  most  tremen- 
dous firing  on  both  sides  continued  without  intermission,  and  the 
firing  did  not  cease  altogether  until  half-past  eleven.  During 
this  engagement  of  nine  hours,  the  allied  fleet  fired  a  hundred 
and  eighteen  tons  of  gunpowder,  and  five  hundred  tons  of  shot 
and  shells.  The  Algerines  exclaimed  that  hell  had  opened  its 
mouth  upon  them  through  the  English  ships.  That  the  Algerines 
had  plied  their  instruments  of  destruction  with  no  common  alac- 
rity is  sufficiently  shown  by  the  fact,  that  eight  hundred  and  fifty- 
two  officers  and  men  were  killed  in  the  British  squadron,  and 
sixty-five  in  the  Dutch.  Lord  Exmouth  himself  says  in  his  de- 
spatch :  "  There  were  awful  movements  during  the  conflict  which 
I  cannot  now  attempt  to  describe,  occasioned  by  firing  the  ships 
so  near  us."  Salame  says  that  one  of  the  Algerine  frigates,  which 
was  in  flames,  drifted  towards  the  Queen  Charlotte,  within  about 
fifty  feet  of  her;  but  a  breeze  springing  up,  carried  the  burning 
frigate  towards  the  town.  The  Algerine  batteries  around  Lord 
Exmouth's  division  were  silenced  about  ten  o'clock,  and  were  in 
a  complete  state  of  ruin  and  dilapidation ;  but  a  fort  at  the  upper 
angle  of  the  city  continued  to  annoy  our  ships,  whose  firing  had 
almost  ceased.  This  was  the  moment  of  the  most  serious  danger 
to  our  fleet.  Our  means  of  attack  were  wellnigh  expended  ;  the 
upper  batteries  of  the  city  could  not  be  reached  by  our  guns ; 
the  ships  were  becalmed.  "  Providence  at  this  interval,"  says 
Lord  Exmouth,  "  gave  to  my  anxious  wishes  the  usual  land 
wind,  common  in  this  bay,  and  my  expectations  were  completed. 
We  were  all  hands  employed  warping  and  towing  off,  and  by  the 
help  of  the  light  air  the  whole  were  under  sail,  and  came  to 
ani-hor  out  of  reach  of  shells  about  two  in  the  morning,  after 
twelve  hours'  incessant  labor."  There,  when  the  ships  had 
hauled  out  beyond  the  reach  of  danger,  a  sublime  spectacle  was 
presented  to  the  wondering  eyes  of  the  interpreter,  who  had 
ventured  out  of  the  safety  of  the  cockpit  to  the  poop  of  the 


CHAP.  VI.]      RELEASE  OF  CHRISTIAN   SLAVES.  81 

Queen  Charlotte.  Nine  Algerine  frigates  and  a  number  of  gun- 
boats were  burning  within  the  bay ;  the  storehouses  within  the 
mole  were  on  fire  ;  the  blaze  illumined  all  the  bay,  and  showed 
the  town  and  its  environs  almost  as  clear  as  in  the  daytime ; 
instead  of  walls  the  batteries  presented  nothing  to  the  sight  but 
heaps  of  rubbish ;  and  out  of  these  ruins  the  Moors  and  Turks 
were  busily  employed  in  dragging  their  dead.  When  the  fleet 
had  anchored,  a  storm  arose —  not  so  violent  as  the  storm  which 
here  destroyed  the  mighty  fleet  of  Clmrlcs  V.,  and  left  his  mag- 
nificent army,  which  had  landed  to  subdue  the  barbarians,  to 
perish  by  sword  and  famine — but  a  storm  of  thunder  and 
lightning  which  filled  up  the  measure  of  sublimity,  at  the  close 
of  the  twelve  awful  hours  of  battle  and  slaughter. 

It  is  unnecessary  for  us  minutely  to  trace  the  progress  of  the 
subsequent  negotiations  with  the  humbled  and  sulky  Dey.  On 
the  morning  of  the  28th.-  Lord  Exrnouth  wrote  a  letter  to  this 
chief,  who  had  himself  fought  with  courage,  in  which  the  same 
terms  of  peace  were  offered  as  on  the  previous  day.  "  If  you 
receive  this  offer  as  you  ought,  you  will  fire  three  guns,"  wrote 
Lord  Exmouth.  The  three  guns  were  fired,  the  Dey  made 
apologies,  and  treaties  of  peace  and  amity  were  finally  signed, 
to  be  very  soon  again  broken.  The  enduring  triumph  of  this 
expedition  was  the  release,  within  three  days  of  the  battle,  of  a 
thousand  and  eighty-three  Christian  slaves,  who  arrived  from  the 
interior,  and  who  were  immediately  conveyed  to  their  respective 
countries.  "  When  I  arrived  on  shore,"  says  Salame,  "  it  was 
the  most  pitiful  sight  to  see  all  those  poor  creatures,  in  what  a 
horrible  state  they  were ;  but  it  is  impossible  to  describe  the  joy 
and  cheerfulness  of  them.  When  our  boats  came  inside  the 
mole,  I  wished  to  receive  them  (the  slaves)  from  the  captain  of 
the  port  by  number,  but  could  not,  because  they  directly  began 
to  push  and  throw  themselves  into  the  boats  by  crowds,  ten  or 
twenty  persons  together,  so  that  it  was  impossible  to  count 
them  ;  then  I  told  him  that  we  should  make  an  exact  list  of 
them,  in  order  to  know  to  what  number  they  amounted.  It  was, 
indeed,  a  most  glorious  and  an  ever-memorably  merciful  act  for 
England,  over  all  P^urope,  to  see  these  poor  slaves,  when  our 
boats  were  shoving  with  them  off  the  shore,  all  at  once  take  off 
their  hats  and  exclaim  in  Italian :  '  Viva  il  Re  d'  Ingliterra,  il 
padre  eterno  !  e  '1  Ammiraglio  Inglese  che  ci  ha  liberate  da  questo 
secondo  inferno  ! '  —  Long  live  the  King  of  England,  the  eter- 
nal father !  and  the  English  Admiral  who  delivered  us  from  this 
second  hell ! " 

"  Seldom  hath  victory  Riven  a  joy  like  this  — 
When  the  delivered  slave 

VOL.   II.  6 


82  HISTORY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [Boon  I. 

Revisits  once  again  his  own  dear  home, 
And  tells  of  all  his  sufferings  past, 
And  blesses  Exmouth's  name. 

Far,  far  and  wide,  along  the  Italian  shores 

That  holy  joy  extends; 
Sardinian  mothers  pay  their  vows  fulfilled; 

And  hymns  are  heard  beside  thy  banks, 
0  Fountain  Arethuse!  "  * 

1  Southey's  Ode. 


CHAP.  VII.]  SOCIAL  IMPROVEMENT.  83 


CHAPTER   VII. 

SILKNT  leges  inter  arma  —  the  laws  are  silent  in  the  midst 
of  arms  —  said  the  great  Roman  orator.  During  our  progreM  of 
quarter  of  a  century  of  war,  the  laws  held  on  their  social  im- 
course  ;  but  few  had  the  courage  to  question  the  wis-  pr01 
dom  of  that  course,  and  still  fewer  the  leisure  to  attend  to  any 
suggestions  of  improvement.  The  daring  adventurer  who  then 
mounted  the  car  of  progress1  had  to  guide  it,  self-balanced,  over 
the  single  rib  of  steel  which  spanned  the  wide  gulf  between  the 
land  of  reality  and  the  land  of  promise.  Romilly  was  the  fore- 
most amongst  the  courageous  spirits  who  risked  something  for 
the  amelioration  of  the  lot  of  their  fellow-men.  In  1516  Sir 
Thomas  More  wrote:2  "  I  think  it  not  right  nor  justice  that  the 
loss  of  money  should  cause  the  loss  of  man's  life ;  for  mine 
opinion  is  that  all  tlie  goods  in  the  world  are  not  able  to  coun- 
tervail man's  life.  But  if  they  would  thus  say,  that  the  break- 
ing of  justice,  and  the  transgression  of  laws,  is  recompensed  with 
this  punishment,  and  not  the  loss  of  the  money,  then  why  may 
not  this  extreme  and  rigorous  justice  well  be  called  plain  injury? 
For  so  cruel  governance,  so  straight  rules,  and  unmerciful  laws 
be  not  allowable,  that  if  a  small  offence  be  committed,  by  and 
by  the  sword  should  be  drawn ;  nor  so  stoical  ordinances  are  to 
be  borne  withal,  as  to  count  all  offences  of  such  equality  that  the 
killing  of  a  man,  or  the  taking  of  his  money  from  him,  were  both 
one  matter."  In  1816  Sir  Samuel  Romilly  carried  a  bill  through 
the  House  of  Commons,  abolishing  capital  punishment  for  shop- 
lifting, which  had  been  rejected  by  that  House  three  years  before. 
The  House  of  Lords,  however,  threw  out  this  bill  ;  and  on  that 
occasion,  three  hundred  years  after  Sir  Thomas  More  had  pro- 
claimed the  opinion  which  we  have  just  recited,  Lord  Ellen- 
borough,  the  Lord  Chief  Justice,  "  lamented  8  that  any  attempts 
were  made  to  change  the  established  and  well-known  criminal 
law  of  the  country,  which  had  been  found  so  well  to  answer  the 
ends  of  justice." 

The  history  of  the  reform  of  our  criminal  law  presents  one  of 

1  See  the  Curse  of  Kehama,  section  xxiii. 

2  Utopia,  Introductory  Discourse  to.    Dibdin's  ed.  1808,  i.  p.  75. 
*  Hansard,  xxxiv.  p.  684. 


84  HISTORY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [BOOK  L 

the  most  encouraging  examples  of  the  unconquerable  success  of 
criminal  the  assertion  of  a  right  principle,  when  it  is  persever- 
law8-  ingb'  advocated,  and  never  suffered  to  deep  ;  and 

when,  abov^  all,  the  reformation  is  attempted  step  by  step,  and 
the  prejudices  of  mankind  are  not  assailed  by  the  bolder  course 
which  appears  to  contemplate  destruction  and  not  repair.  The 
name  of  reform  in  the  criminal  laws  had  not  been  heard  in  the 
House  of  Commons  for  fifty-eight  years,  when,  in  1808,  Romilly 
carried  his  bill  for  the  abolition  of  the  punishment  of  death  for 
privately  stealing  from  the  person  to  the  value  of  five  shillings  ; 
in  other  words,  for  picking  pockets.  It  is  instructive  to  see  how, 
through  the  force  of  the  circumstances  around  him,  Romilly 
approached  the  subject  of  this  reform  with  a  caution  which  now 
looks  almost  like  weakness.  His  object  was  originally  to  raise 
the  value  according  to  which  a  theft  was  rendered  capital.1  In 
January  1808,  he  gave  up  the  intention  of  bringing  forward  even 
this  limited  measure,  —  he  was  sure  the  judges  would  not  ap- 
prove of  it.  To  another  distinguished  lawyer  belongs  the  merit 
of  having  urged  Romilly  to  a  bolder  policy.  His  friend  Scar- 
lett, he  says,4  u  had  advised  me  not  to  content  myself  with  merely 
raising  the  amount  of  the  value  of  property,  the  stealing  of  which 
is  to  subject  the  offender  to  capital  punishment,  but  to  attempt 
at  once  to  repeal  all  the  statutes  which  punish  with  death  mere 
thefts  unaccompanied  by  any  act  of  violence,  or  other  circum- 
stance of  aggravation.  This  suggestion  was  very  agreeable  to 
me.  But,  as  it  appeared  to  me  that  I  had  no  chance  of  being 
able  to  carry  through  the  House  a  bill  which  was  to  expunge  at 
once  all  these  laws  from  the  statute-book,  I  determined  to  at- 
tempt the  repeal  of  them  one  by  one ;  and  to  begin  with  the 
most  odious  of  them,  the  act  of  Queen  Elizabeth,  which  makes 
it  a  capital  offence  to  steal  privately  from  the  person  of  another." 
Upon  this  prudential  principle  Romilly  carried  his  first  reform 
in  1808.  But  the  House  of  Commons,  which  consented  to  pass 
the  bill,  forced  upon  him  the  omission  of  its  preamble :  "  Where- 
as, the  extreme  severity  of  penal  laws  hath  not  been  found 
effectual  for  the  prevention  of  crimes  ;  but,  on  the  contrary,  by 
increasing  the  difficulty  of  convicting  offenders,  in  some  cases 
affords  them  impunity,  and  in  most  cases  renders  their  punish- 
ment extremely  uncertain."  The  temper  with  which  too  many 
persons  of  rank  and  influence  received  any  project  of  ameliora- 
tion at  the  beginning  of  this  century,  is  forcibly  exhibited  in  an 
anecdote  which  Romilly  has  preserved  for  our  edification :  8  ''If 
any  person  be  desirous  of  having  an  adequate  idea  of  the  mis- 
chievous effects  which  have  been  produced  in  this  country  by  the 

i  Romilly-s  Diary,  Oct.  1807.  a  Ibid.  April,  1808. 

•  Ibid.  June,  1808. 


CHAP.  VII.]  CRIMINAL  LAWS.  85 

French  Revolution  and  all  fts  attendant  horrors,  he  should  at- 
tempt some  legislative  reform,  on  humane  and  liberal  princi- 
ples. He  will  then  find,  not  only  what  a  stupid  dread  of  inno- 
vation, but  what  a  savage  spirit,  it  has  infused  into  the  minds 
of  many  of  his  countrymen.  I  have  had  several  opportunities 
of  observing  this.  It  is  but  a  few  nights  ago,  that,  while  I  was 
standing  at  the  bar  of  the  House  of  Commons,  a  young  man,  the 
brother  of  a  peer,  whose  name  is  not  worth  setting  down,  came 
up  to  me,  and  breathing  in  my  face  the  nauseous  fumes  of  his 
undigested  debauch,  stammered  out,  '  I  am  against  your  bill ; 
I  am  for  hanging  all.'  I  was  confounded ;  and  endeavoring  to 
find  out  some  excuse  for  him,  I  observed  *  that  I  supposed  he 
meant  that  the  certainty  of  punishment  affording  the  only  pros- 
pect of  suppressing  crimes,  the  laws,  whatever  they  were,  ought 
to  be  executed.'  '  No,  no,'  he  said ;  '  it  is  not  that.  There  is 
no  good  done  by  mercy.  They  only  get  worse  ;  I  would  hang 
them  all  up  at  once.' " 

In  1810  Sir  Samuel  Romilly  brought  in  three  bills  to  repeal 
the  acts  which  punished  with  death  the  crimes  of  stealing  pri- 
vately in  a  shop  goods  of  the  value  of  five  shillings,  and  of 
stealing  to  the  amount  of  forty  shillings  in  a  dwelling-house,  or 
on  board  vessels  in  navigable  rivers.  The  first  bill  passed  the 
House  of  Commons,  but  was  lo<t  in  the  Lords.  The  other  two 
were  rejected.  In  1811  the  rejected  bills  were  again  introduced, 
with  a  fourth  bill  abolishing  the  capital  punishment  for  stealing 
in  bleaching-grounds.  The  four  bills  were  carried  through  the 
House  of  Commons ;  but  only  that  on  the  subject  of  bleach- 
ing-grounds  was  sanctioned  by  the  Lords.  The  constant  argu- 
ment that  was  employed  on  these  occasions  against  the  altera- 
tion of  the  law  was  this  —  that  of  late  years  the  offences  which 
they  undertook  to  repress  were  greatly  increased.  Justly  did 
Ilomilly  say  :  "  A  better  reason  than  this  for  altering  the  law 
could  hardly  be  given."  On  the  24th  of  May,  1811,  when  three 
of  the  bills  were  rejected  in  the  House  of  Lords,  Lord  Ellen- 
borough  declared : 1  "  They  went  to  alter  those  laws  which  a 
century  had  proved  to  be  necessary,  and  which  were  now  to  be 
overturned  by  speculation  and  modern  philosophy."  The  Lord 
Chancellor,  Eldon,  on  the  same  occasion  stilted,2  that  he  had  him- 
self early  in  life  felt  a  disposition  to  examine  the  principles  on 
which  our  criminal  code  was  framed,  "  before  observation  and 
experience  had  matured  his  judgment.  Since,  however,  he  had 
learned  to  listen  to  these  great  teachers  in  this  important  science, 
his  ideas  had  greatly  changed,  and  he  saw  the  wisdom  of  the 
principles  and  practice  by  which  our  criminal  code  was  regu- 
lated." In  18 lo  Sir  Samuel  Romilly's  bill  for  the  abolition  of 
1  Hansard  xx.  p.  299.  2  Ibid.  p.  300. 


86  HISTORY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [BOOK  I. 

capital  punishment  in  cases  of  shoplifting  was  carried  by  the 
Commons  in  the  new  parliament ;  but  it  was  again  rejected  in 
the  House  of  Lords.  No  further  attempt  was  made  towards 
the  amelioration  of  this  branch  of  our  laws  till  the  year  1816  ; 
which  attempt  we  have  now  more  particularly  to  record. 

On  the  1 6th  of  February,1  Sir  Samuel  Romilly  obtained  leave 
to  bring  in  a  bill  repealing  the  act  of  William  III.,  which  made 
it  a  capital  offence  to  steal  privately  in  a  shop  to  the  value  of 
five  shillings.  He  described  this  act  as  the  most  severe  and  san- 
guinary in  our  statute-book  ;  inconsistent  with  the  spirit  of  the 
times  in  which  we  lived ;  and  repugnant  to  the  law  of  nature, 
which  had  no  severer  punishment  to  inflict  upon  the  most  atro- 
cious of  crimes.  As  recently  as  1785,  no  less  than  ninety -seven 
persons  were  executed  in  London  for  this  offence  alone ;  and  the 
dreadful  spectacle  was  exhibited  of  twenty  suffering  at  the  same 
time.  The  capital  sentence  was  now  constantly  evaded  by  juries 
committing  a  pious  fraud,  and  finding  the  property  of  less  value 
than  was  required  by  the  statute.  The  consequence,  if  severe 
laws  were  never  executed,  was,  that  crime  went  on  to  increase, 
and  the  crimes  of  juvenile  offenders  especially.  On  moving  the 
third  reading  of  the  bill,  on  the  loth  of  March,  Sir  Samuel 
Romilly  called  attention  to  the  great  number  of  persons  of  very 
tender  age  who  had  recently  been  sentenced  to  death  for  pilfer- 
ing in  shops.  At  that  moment  there  was  a  child  in  Newgate,3 
not  ten  years  of  age,  under  sentence  of  death  for  this  offence  ; 
and  the  recorder  of  London  was  reported  to  have  declared  that 
it  was  intended  to  enforce  the  laws  strictly  in  future,  to  interpose 
some  check,  if  possible,  to  the  increase  of  youthful  depravity. 
The  bill  passed  the  Commons,  but  was  thrown  out  in  the  Lords 
on  the  22d  of  May.  On  this  occasion  the  Lord  Chief  Justice 
agreed  with  the  Lord  Chancellor,3  "  that  the  effect  of  removing  the 
penalty  of  death  from  other  crimes  had  rendered  him  still  more 
averse  to  any  new  experiment  of  this  kind.  Since  the  removal 
of  the  vague  terror  which  hung  over  the  crime  of  stealing  from 
the  person,  the  number  of  offences  of  that  kind  hud  alarmingly 
increased.  Though  the  punishment  of  death  was  seldom  in- 
flicted for  crimes  of  this  nature,  yet  the  influence  which  the 
possibility  of  capital  punishment  had  in  the  prevention  of  crimes 
could  scarcely  be  estimated,  except  by  those  who  had  the  expe- 
rience in  the  operation  of  the  criminal  law  which  he  had  the 
misfortune  to  have.  When  it  was  considered  that  the  protection 
of  the  property  in  all  shops  depended  on  the  act  before  them, 
and  that  even  now  thefts  of  that  description  were  numerous,  the 
House  would  not,  he  trusted,  take  measures  to  increase  them. ' 

When  we  look  back  on  the  debates  upon  the  criminal  law, 
l  Hansard,  xxxiii.  p.  630.  2  Ibid.  p.  374.  a  Ibid,  xxxiv.  p.  684. 


CHAP.  VII.]  POLICE   SYSTEM.  87 

from  1809  to  1816,  and  see  how  little  was  asked  by  Romilly, 
and  refused  to  him,  compared  with  the  amount  of  reform  that 
has  since  been  accomplished,  we  can  only  regard  the  arguments 
for  the  support  of  the  ancient  system  of  capricious  terror,  as 
the  arguments  of  men  slowly  and  painfully  emerging  from  bar- 
barism. When,  in  the  time  of  Henry  VI.,1  more  persons  were 
executed  in  England  in  one  year  for  highway  robbery  than 
the  whole  number  executed  in  France  in  seven  years ;  when  in 
the  reign  of  Henry  VIII.,2  seventy -two  thousand  thieves  were 
hanged,  being  at  the  rate  of  two  thousand  a  year  ;  and  when,  in 
the  reign  of  George  III.,  as  we  have  seen,  twenty  persons  were 
executed  on  the  same  morning  in  London,  for  privately  stealing  — 
we  see  the  principle  of  unmitigated  ferocity,  the  savagery  which 
applies  brute  force  as  the  one  remedy  for  every  evil,  enshrined 
on  the  judgment-seat.  The  system  went  on  till  society  was 
heart-sick  at  its  atrocities,  and  then  rose  up  the  equivocating  sys- 
tem which  lord  chancellors,  and  lord  chief  justices,  and  doctors  in 
moral  philosophy,  upheld  as  the  perfection  of  human  wisdom,  — 
the  system  of  making  the  lightest  as  well  as  the  most  enormous 
offences  capital,  that  the  law  might  stand  up  as  a  scarecrow  — 
an  old,  ragged,  ill-contrived,  and  hideous  maukin  —  that  the 
smallest  bird  that  habitually  pilfered  the  fields  of  industry  de- 
spised while  he  went  on  pilfering.  With  the  absolute  certainty 
of  experience  that  bloody  laws  rigorously  administered  did  not 
diminish  crime,  the  legislators  of  the  beginning  of  the  nineteenth 
century  believed,  or  affected  to  believe,  that  the  same  laws 
scarcely  ever  carried  into  execution  would  operate  through  the  in- 
fluence of  what  they  called  "  a  vague  terror."  As  if  any  terror, 
as  a  preventive  of  crime  or  a  motive  to  good,  was  ever  vague. 
The  system  was  entirely  kept  in  existence  by  the  incompetence 
and  idleness  of  the  law-makers  and  the  law-administrators.  A 
well-digested  system  of  secondary  punishments  never  seemed  to 
them  to  be  within  the  possibility  of  legislation.  We  are  very 
far  from  the  solution  of  this  great  problem  in  our  own  days ;  but 
we  have  made  some  steps  towards  its  attainment. 

The  revolting  cruelty  and  the  disgusting  absurdity  of  our  crim- 
inal laws,  thirty  years  ago,  were  in  perfect  harmony 
with  the  system  of  police,  which  had  then  arrived  at 
its  perfection  of  imbecile  wickedness.  The  machinery  for  the 
prevention  and  detection  of  crime  was  exactly  accommodated  to 
the  machinery  for  its  punishment.  On  the  3d  of  April,  on  the 
motion  of  Mr.  Rennet,  a  committee  of  the  House  of  Commons 
was  appointed  to  inquire  into  the  state  of  the  police  of  the  me- 
tropolis. The  committee  was  resumed  in  1817  ;  and  two  re- 
ports were  presented,  which  were  amongst  the  first  causes  of  the 
1  Fortescue.  2  Harrison. 


88  HISTORY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [BOOK  I 

awakening  of  the  public  mind  to  a  sense  of  the  frightful  evils 
which  were  existing  in  what  we  flattered  ourselves  to  be  the 
most  civilized  city  in  the  world.  Twelve  years  after  a  committee 
of  the  House  of  Commons  thus  described  the  police  system  of 
1816  and  1817  i1"  If  a  foreign  jurist  had  then  examined  the 
condition  of  the  metropolis,  as  respected  crime,  and  the  organiza- 
tion of  its  police  —  and  if,  without  tracing  the  circumstances 
from  which  that  organization  arose,  he  had  inferred  design  from 
the  ends  to  which  it  appeared  to  conduce  —  he  might  have 
brought  forward  plausible  reasons  for  believing  that  it  was  craft- 
ily framed  by  a  body  of  professional  depredators  upon  a  calcula- 
tion of  the  best  means  of  obtaining  from  society,  with  security 
to  themselves,  the  greatest  quantity  of  plunder.  He  would 
have  found  the  metropolis  divided  and  subdivided  into  petty 
jurisdictions,  each  independent  of  every  other,  each  having  suf- 
ficiently distinct  interests  to  engender  perpetual  jealousies  and 
animosities,  and  being  sufficiently  free  from  any  general  control 
to  prevent  any  intercommunity  of  reformation  or  any  unity  of 
action."  Another  committee  of  the  House  of  Commons,  report- 
ing in  1833,  says  of  the  same  system:2  "The  police  was  roused 
into  earnest  action  only  as  some  flagrant  violation  of  the  public 
peace,  or  some  deep  injury  to  private  individuals,  impelled  it  into 
exertion  ;  and  security  to  persons  and  property  was  sought  to  be 
obtained,  not  by  the  activity  and  wholesome  vigor  of  a  prevent- 
ive police,  which  it  is  a  paramount  duty  of  the  state  to  provide, 
but  by  resorting  from  time  to  time,  as  an  occasional  increase  of 
the  more  violent  breaches  of  the  law  demanded  it,  to  the  highest 
and  ultimate  penalties  of  that  law,  in  the  hope  of  checking  the 
more  desperate  offenders."  The  same  report  says  :  "  Flash-houses 
were  then  declared  to  be  a  necessary  part  of  the  police  system, 
where  known  thieves,  with  the  full  knowledge  of  the  magistrates 
and  public  officers,  assembled  ;  until  the  state,  or  individuals,  from 
the  losses  they  had  sustained,  or  the  wrongs  they  had  suffered, 
bid  high  enough  for  their  detection." 

Flash-houses,  known  in  the  scientific  phraseology  of  the  police 
as  "  flash-cribs,"  "  shades,"  and  "  infernals,"  were  filthy  dens, 
where  thieves  and  abandoned  females  were  always  to  be  found, 
riotous  or  drowsy,  surrounded  by  children  of  all  ages,  qualifying 
for  their  degrees  in  the  college  of  crime.  "  There,"  says  a  Mid- 
dlesex magistrate, examined  before  the  committee  of  1816,  "they 
(the  children)  see  thieves  and  thief-takers  sitting  and  drinking 
together  on  terms  of  good-fellowship ;  all  they  see  and  hear  is 
calculated  to  make  them  believe  they  may  rob  without  fear  of 
punishment ;  for  in  their  thoughtless  course  they  do  not  reflect 
that  the  forbearance  of  the  officers  will  continue  no  longer  than 
i  Report  on  Preventive  Police,  1829.  2  Report  on  Metropolitan  Police. 


CHAP.  VII.]  GAS-LIGHT.  89 

until  they  commit  a  forty-pound  crime,  when  they  will  be  sacri- 
ficed." A  forty-pound  crime !  —  the  phraseology  is  as  abso- 
lute as  if  it  were  written  in  the  peddler's  French  of  the  rogues  of 
the  sixteenth  century.  A  forty-pound  crime  was  a  crime  for 
whose  detection  the  state  adjudged  a  reward,  to  be  paid  on  con- 
viction, of  forty  pounds  ;  and,  as  a  necessary  consequence,  the 
whole  race  of  thieves  were  fostered  into  a  steady  advance  from 
small  offences  to  great,  till  they  gratefully  ventured  upon  some 
deed  of  more  than  common  atrocity,  which  should  bestow  the 
lilood-money  upon  the  officers  of  the  law  who  had  so  long  petted 
ami  protected  them.  The  system  received  a  fatal  blow  in  1816, 
in  the  detection  of  three  officers  of  the  police,  who  had  actually 
conspired  to  induce  five  men  to  commit  a  burglary  for  the  pur- 
pose of  obtaining  the  rewards  upon  their  conviction.  The  high- 
waymen who  infested  the  suburbs  of  the  metropolis  had  been 
eradicated  —  they  belonged  to  another  age.  Offences  against 
the  person  were  very  rarely  connected  with  any  offences  against 
property.  But  the  uncertainty  of  punishment,  the  authorized 
toleration  of  small  offenders,  and  the  organized  system  of  negoti- 
ation for  the  return  of  stolen  property,  had  filled  the  metropolis 
with  legions  of  experienced  depredators.  The  public  exhibitions 
of  the  most  profligate  indecency  and  brutality  can  scarcely  be 
believed  by  those  who  have  grown  up  in  a  different  state  of  so- 
ciety. When  Defoe  described  his  Colonel  Jack,  in  the  days  of 
his  boyish  initiation  into  vice,  sleeping  with  other  children 
amidst  the  kilns  and  glass-houses  of  the  London  fields,  we  read 
of  a  state  of  things  that  has  long  passed  away  ;  but,  as  recently 
as  1816,  in  Covent-Garden  Market,  and  other  places  affording  a 
partial  shelter,  hundreds  of  men  and  women,  boys  and  girls,  as- 
sembled together,  and  continued  during  the  night,  in  a  state  of 
shameless  profligacy,  which  is  described  as  presenting  a  scene  of 
vice  and  tumult  more  atrocious  than  anything  exhibited  even  by 
the  lazzaroni  of  Naples. 

The  brilliantly  lighted,  carefully  watched,  safe,  orderly,  and 
tranquil  London  of  the  present  day,  presents  as 
great  a  contrast  to  the  London  of  1 8 1 6,  as  that  again 
contrasted  with  the  London  of  1762  —  the  year  in  which  the 
Westminster  paving  and  lighting  act  was  passed.  Street  rob- 
beries, before  that  period,  were  the  ordinary  events  of  the  night ; 
security  was  the  exception  to  the  course  of  atrocity,  for  which 
the  government  applied  no  remedy  but  to  hang.  For  half  a  cen- 
tury after  this  the  metropolis  had  its  comparative  safety  of  fee- 
ble oil-lamps  and  decrepit  watchmen.  The  streets  were  filled 
with  tumultuous  vagabonds  ;  and  the  drowsy  guardians  of  the 
night  suffered  every  abomination  to  go  on  in  lawless  vigor,  hap- 
py if  their  sleep  were  undisturbed  by  the  midnight  row  of  the 


90  HISTORY   OF   THE  PEACE.  [BOOK  I. 

drunken  rake.  In  1807  Pall-Mali  was  lighted  by  gas.  The 
persevering  German  who  spent  his  own  money  and  that  of  the 
subscribers  to  his  scheme,  had  no  reward.  The  original  gas  com- 
pany, whose  example  was  to  be  followed  not  only  by  all  England, 
but  the  whole  civilized  world,  were  first  derided,  and  then  treat- 
ed in  parliament  as  rapacious  monopolists  intent  upon  the  ruin 
of  established  industry.  The  adventurers  in  gas-light  did  more 
for  the  prevention  of  crime  than  the  government  had  done  since 
the  days  of  Alfred.  We  turn  to  the  parliamentary  debates,  and 
we  see  how  they  were  encouraged  in  1816  —  nine  years  after  it 
had  been  found  that  the  invention  was  of  unappreciable  public 
benefit ;  "  The  company,"  said  the  Earl  of  Lauderdale,1  '•  aimed  at 
a  monopoly,  which  would  ultimately  prove  injurious  to  the  pub- 
lic, and  ruin  that  most  important  branch  of  trade,  our  whale-fish- 
eries." Alderman  Atkins  2  "  contended  that,  the  measure  was 
calculated  to  ruin  that  hardy  race  of  men,  the  persons  employed 
in  the  Southern  and  Greenland  whale-fisheries,  in  each  of  which 
a  million  of  money  and  above  a  hundred  ships  were  engaged. 
If  the  bill  were  to  pass,  it  would  throw  out  of  employ  ten  thou- 
sand seamen,  and  above  ten  thousand  rope-makers,  sail-makers, 
mast-makers,  &c.  connected  with  that  trade."  Who  can  forbear 
to  admire  the  inexhaustible  fund  of  benevolence  that  for  ages 
has  been  at  work  in  the  advocacy  of  the  great  principle  of  pro- 
tection? At  every  step  of  scientific  discovery  which  promises  to 
impart  new  benefits  to  mankind,  however  certain  and  unques- 
tionable be  the  benefit,  we  are  called  upon  to  maintain  the  an- 
cient state  of  things,  amidst  the  terrible  denunciations  of  ruin 
to  some  great  interest  or  other.  It  is  quite  marvellous  the  ruin 
that  has  been  threatening  us  since  the  peace,  when  capital  has 
been  free  to  apply  itself  in  aid  of  skill  and  enterprise.  The 
ruin  that  gas-light  was  to  produce  is  a  pretty  fair  example  of  the 
ruin  that  has  gone  on,  and  is  still  going  on,  for  no  objects  but 
those  of  thinning  our  population,  diminishing  our  manufactures, 
crippling  our  commerce,  extinguishing  our  agriculture,  and  pau- 
perizing our  landed  proprietors.  There  never  was  a  nation 
doomed  to  such  perils  by  the  restless  character  of  its  people. 
They  will  not  let  well-enough  alone,  as  the  only  wise  men  say, 
In  1816  they  risked  the  existence  of  the  British  navy,  which 
depended  upon  the  whale-fisheries,  for  the  trifling  advantage  of 
making  London  as  light  by  night  as  by  day,  and  bestowing  safety 
and  peacefulness  upon  its  million  of  inhabitants.  And  yet,  at 
the  very  moment  that  this  ruin  was  predicted  to  oil,  it  was  ad- 
mitted that  we  could  not  obtain  a  sufficiency  of  oil.  There  are 
some  lessons  yet  to  be  learned  on  the  subject  of  protection,  even 
from  this  petty  fight  of  oil  and  gas. 

i  Hansard,  xxxiv.  p.  1280.  2  Ibid.  p.  1072. 


CHAP.  VII.]         MENDICITY  AND   VAGRANCY.  91 

A  committee  of  the  House  of  Commons  was  appointed  in 
1815  to  inquire  into  the  state  of  mendicity  and  va-  Mendic5ty 
gnincy  in  the  metropolis  and  its  neighborhood  ;  and  and  va- 
they  continued  their  sittings  in  1816,  reporting  min-  grancy- 
iites  of  the  evidence  in  each  year.  Beyond  these  reports  no  leg- 
islative measure  was  adopted.  The  evidence  went  rather  to 
show  the  amount  of  imposture  than  of  destitution.  To  collect 
sue!  evidence  was  an  amusing  occupation  for  the  idle  mornings 
of  members  of  parliament.  To  inquire  into  the  causes  of  des- 
titution and  its  remedies  would  have  been  a  far  heavier  task. 
The  chief  tendency  of  the  evidence  was  to  show  how  the  sturdy 
beggar  was  a  capitalist  and  an  epicure ;  ate  fowls  and  beefsteaks 
for  supper,  and  despised  broken  rndat  ;  had  money  in  the  funds, 
and  left  handsome  legac  es  to  his  relations.  The  witnesses, 
moreover,  had  famous  stories  of  a  lame  impostor  who  tied  up  his 
leg  in  a  wooden  frame,  and  a  blind  one  who  wrote  letters  in  the 
evening  for  his  unlettered  brethren  ;  of  a  widow  who  sat  for  ten 
years  with  twins  who  never  grew  bigger,  and  a  wife  who  ob- 
tained clothes  and  money  from  eleven  lying-in  societies  in  the 
same  year.  But  the  committee  had  also  some  glimpses  of  real 
wretchedness  amidst  these  exciting  tales  of  beggar-craft  —  as 
old  as  the  days  of  the  old  Abraham  men.  They  heard  of  Cal- 
mel's  Buildings,  a  small  court  of  twenty-four  houses  in  the  im- 
mediate vicinity  of  Portman  Square,  where  more  than  seven 
hundred  Irish  lived  in  the  most  complete  distress  and  profligacy  ; 
and  they  were  told  that  the  court  was  totally  neglected  by  the 
parish  ;  that  it  was  never  cleaned  ;  that  people  were  afraid  to 
enter  it  from  dread  of  contagion.  In  George  Yard,  Whitechapel, 
they  were  informed  that  there  were  two  thousand  people,  occu- 
pying forty  houses,  in  a  similar  state  of  wretchedness.  Much 
more  of  this  was  told  the  committee  ;  but  the  evil  was  exhibited 
and  forgotten.  Very  much  of  what  was  called  the  vagrancy  of 
the  metropolis  was  a  natural  consequence  of  the  administration 
of  the  poor-laws  throughout  the  kingdom.  A  large  proportion 
of  the  money  raised  for  the  relief  of  the  poor  was  ex-  Lawof  »et- 
pended  in  shifting  the  burden  of  their  relief  from  one  tlem«nt- 
parish  to  another;  and  Middlesex  kept  a  number  of  functionaries 
in  active  operation,  to  get  rid  of  the  vagrants  that  crowded  into 
London,  by  passing  them  out  of  the  limits  of  the  metropolitan 
county,  to  return,  of  course,  on  the  first  convenient  occasion. 
The  vagrants  were  dealt  with  "  as  the  act  directs,"  —  that  is.  they 
were  committed  to  a  house  of  correction  for  seven  days,  and 
then  passed  to  their  respective  parishes,  if  they  belonged  to  Eng- 
land ;  or  carted  to  Bri-tol  or  Liverpool,  if  they  were  natives  of 
Ireland.  As  Middlesex  worked  under  tlie  la\v  of  settlement,  so 
worked  the  whole  kingdom.  Tin's  law  of  settlement  was  in  full 


92  .HISTOKY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [BOOK  L 

operation,  playing  its  fantastic  tricks  from  the  Channel  to  the 
Tweed,  when  the  peace  filled  the  land  with  disbanded  seamen  and 
other  servants  of  war  ;  and  agricultural  laborers,  who  could  find  no 
employ  at  home,  were  wandering,  as  it  was  called,  to  search  for 
capital,  where  capital  was  seeking  for  labor.  The  statute  of  1 662, 
the  foundation  of  the  law  of  settlement,  forbade  this  wandering, 
and  gave  a  very  amusing  explanation  of  the  ground  of  its  prohi- 
bitions :  "  Whereas,  by  reason  of  some  defects  in  the  law,  poor 
people  are  not  restrained  from  going  from  one  parish  to  another, 
and  therefore  do  endeavor  to  settle  themselves  in  those  parishes 
where  there  is  the  best  stock."  The  great  natural  law  of  labor 
seeking  exchange  with  capital,  was  to  be  resisted  by  a  law  which 
declared  that  those  who  so'ught  to  effect  this  exchange  were 
"  rogues  and  vagabonds."  But  still,  in  spite  of  statute  upon  statute, 
the  laborers  would  wander,  and  "  endeavor  to  settle  themselves  in 
the  parishes  where  there  is  the  best  stock  ; "  and,  the  happy  days 
being  gone,  never  to  return,  when  Poor  Tom  was  "  whipped  from 
tithing  to  tithing,  and  stocked,  punished,  and  imprisoned,"  the 
poor-law  functionaries,  in  deference  to  the  more  merciful  spirit 
of  the  age,  employed  a  great  portion  of  their  time,  and  a  larger 
portion  of  the  public  money,  in  carrying  the  laborers  about  from 
one  end  of  the  kingdom  to  the  other,  parcelling  them  out  with 
the  nicest  adjustment  amongst  the  fourteen  thousand  little  divis- 
ions called  parishes ;  and  determining  that,  whatever  circum- 
stances existed  in  any  one  of  these  fourteen  thousand  divisions  to 
make  the  presence  of  the  laborers  desirable  or  otherwise,  they 
should  go,  and  they  should  stay,  where  they  had  been  born  or 
apprenticed,  or  last  lived  for  a  year.  The  committee  of  the 
House  of  Commons  on  mendicity  and  vagrancy,  in  1816,  re- 
ceived evidence  upon  evidence  of  the  extent  of  this  transplan- 
tation of  laborers,  which  set  the  whole  country  alive  with  the 
movements  of  vagrant-carts,  without  the  slightest  suspicion  that 
there  was  something  radically  wrong  at  the  foundation  of  a  sys- 
tem which  cost  the  rate-payers  several  millions  annually  in  ex- 
penses of  removal  and  of  litigation,  and  with  an  indirect  cost 
to  the  nation  of  many  millions  of  profitable  labor,  which  was 
destroyed  by  this  constant  exercise  of  the  disturbing  forces  of 
ignorant  legislation.  After  the  peace,  the  clinging  of  parishes  to 
the  law  of  settlement  became  more  monstrous  than  ever.  "Soon 
after  the  close  of  the  war,1  when  the  agricultural  laborers  were 
increased  by  the  disbanding  of  the  army,  and  the  demand  for 
their  labor  was  diminished  from  various  causes,  agricultural  par- 
ishes very  generally  came  to  the  resolution  of  employing  none  but 
their  own  parishioners  ;  which  ruined  the  industry  of  the  country, 
and  produced  more  individual  misery  than  can  be  conceived  by 
1  Answer  from  Sussex  to  Commissioners  of  Poor-Law  Inquiry. 


CHAP.  VII  ]         POOR-LAW  ADMINISTRATION.  93 

those  who  were  not  eye-witnesses  ;  the  immediate  consequence 
of  this  determination  was,  the  removal  of  numbers  of  the  most 
industrious  families  from  homes  where  they  had  lived  in  comfort, 
and  without  parish  relief,  all  their  lives,  to  a  workhouse  in  the 
parish  to  which  they  belonged,  and,  without  materially  affecting 
the  ultimate  numbers  in  the  respective  parishes,  the  wretched 
objects  of  removal,  instead  of  happy  and  contented  laborers, 
became  the  miserable  inmates  of  crowded  workhouses,  without 
the  hope  of  ever  returning  to  their  former  independence." 

On  the  28th  of  May,  Mr.  Cur  wen,  an  intelligent  agriculturist, 
brought  the  subject  of  the  poor-laws  before  the  House 
of  Commons,  on  a  motion  for  the  appointment  of  a  mtnisTratJon 
committee  of  inquiry.  Mr.  Curwen  had  a  plan  —  as  °f  the  P°or- 
many  others  had  their  plans.  His  pLin  was  to  abolish 
the  poor-rates,  enacting  "  that  every  individual  who  made  any 
profit  or  advantage  by  his  labor,  should  contribute  towards  a  par- 
ish fund  for  the  relief  of  sickness,  age,  or  misfortune,  for  the  en- 
couragement of  industry  and  good  morals,  for  a  general  plan  of 
education,  and  such  other  objects  as  might  be  conducive  to  the 
comforts  and  happiness  of  the  laboring  classes ;  to  which  fund 
capitalists  and  property  should  contribute."  Mr.  Curwen  had 
a  theory  that  the  extension  of  manufactures,  having  raised  the 
average  rate  of  wage-,  had  produced  general  improvidence  ;  that 
improvidence  was  the  main  cause  of  distress  and  poor-rates ;  and 
that  to  abridge  the  means  of  improvidence,  by  converting  all  the 
laboring  population  into  fourteen  thousand  parochial  friendly 
societies,  was  at  once  to  establish  the  comfort  and  independence 
of  all  who  had  been  so  long  degraded  and  demoralized  by  parish 
allowances.  It  is  scarcely  necessary  for  us  to  dwell  upon  the 
practical  absurdity  of  this  benevolent  dream.  The  scheme  of 
Mr.  Curwen  formed  small  part  of  the  deliberations  of  the  com- 
mittee, which  reported  in  1817.  Their  recommendations  for  the 
remedy  of  the  enormous  evil  of  the  existing  poor-laws,  did  not 
penetrate  beneath  the  surface.  It  may  be  desirable  here  to  re- 
cord what  was  the  actual  state  of  poor-law  administration  thirty 
years  ago. 

The  system  of  poor-laws  in  England  began,  no  doubt,  in  ex- 
pediency. The  gradual  breaking  up  of  feudal  service  and  pro- 
tection, the  sudden  dissolution  of  the  monastic  institutions,  and 
the  almost  concurrent  depreciation  of  the  value  of  money  conse- 
quent upon  the  discovery  of  America,  produced  an  aggregate 
of  misery  which  imperatively  demanded  a  forced  contribution 
from  capital.  The  same  laws  which,  justly  and  mercifully  to  a 
certain  extent,  required  that  casual  misfortune  should  be  re- 
lieved, also  provided  that  "the  poor  should  be  set  to  work."  The 
natural  operations  of  demand  and  supply  were  here  disturbed ; 


94  HISTORY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [BOOK  I. 

the  natural  relations  between  profits  and  wages  were  inter- 
rupted ;  a  fund  was  created  for  the  laborers,  which  could  not  be 
distributed  with  reference  to  the  amount  of  profitable  labor  ;  the 
fund  for  the  support  of  profitable  labor  was  therefore  broken  in 
upon  ;  and,  for  three  centuries,  consequently,  a  struggle  was  go- 
ing forward  between  the  demands  of  want  and  the  demands  of 
industry.  Circumstances,  which  arose  almost  within  our  own  gen- 
eration, went  on,  steadily  breaking  down  the  barriers  which  sep- 
arated the  two  classes  of  claimants  upon  the  labor-fund ;  and  at 
the  close  of  the  war,  with  reference  to  the  largest  body  of  la- 
borers, the  agricultural,  the  distinction  between  the  two  classes 
of  claimants  had  in  great  part  ceased.  The  demands  of  want 
and  the  demands  of  industry  were  confounded.  The  members 
of  one  class  had  insensibly  slid  into  the  other.  The  wages  of 
idleness  and  vice,  and  the  wages  of  industry  and  good  conduct, 
were  to  be  paid  out  of  a  common  purse ;  and  it  is  not  therefore 
to  be  wondered  at  if  the  easier  claim  upon  the  wages  had  been 
generally  preferred  to  the  more  laborious. 

In  1816,  the  sum  expended  for  the  relief  of  the  poor  of 
England  and  Wales  amounted  to  5,724,839/.  The  average 
annual  expenditure  had  gradually  increased  from  about  two  mil- 
lions, at  the  commencement  of  the  war,  to  six  or  seven  millions 
at  its  close.  A  very  large  portion  of  the  money  that  had  been 
spent  in  fostering  pauperism  during  the  war  years,  by  parish 
allowances  in  aid  of  wages,  represents  the  amount  of  degradation 
and  misery  which  the  laborers  endured,  as  compared  with  their 
unallowanced  forefathers.  The  national  debt  represents,  in  a  great 
decree,  the  money  expended  in  unprofitable  wars,  the  waste  of 
capital  upon  objects  that  can  only  be  justified  by  the  last  neces- 
sity, and  which  are  the  result  of  those  evil  passions  which  the 
improved  knowledge  and  virtue  of  mankind  may  in  time  root 
out.  In  the  same  way,  had  the  money  expended  upon  fostering 
p-iuperism  been  raised  upon  loan,  we  should  have  had  an  amount 
of  some  two  hundred  millions,  representing,  in  a  like  decree,  the 
waste  of  capital  expended  in  drying  up  the  sources  of  industry 
and  skill,  and  paying  the  alms  of  miserable  indigence,  instead  of 
the  wages  of  contented  labor.  It  is  difficult  to  conceive  a  more 
complete  state  of  degradation  than  the  allowanced  laborers  ex- 
hibited in  1816.  With  the  feudal  servitude  had  passed  away 
the  feudal  protection.  The  parish  servitude  imposed  the  miseries 
and  contumelies  of  slavery,  without  its  exemption  from  immedi- 
ate care  and  future  responsibility.  So  far  were  the  agricultural 
laborers  slaves,  that,  although  they  could  not  be  actually  sold, 
like  "  villeins  in  gross,"  their  labor  was  put  up  by  auction  to  the 
best  bidder  by  parish  authorities.  "  The  overseer  *  calls  a  meet- 

1  Agricultural  State  of  the  Kingdom,  1816;  published  by  the  Board  of  Agri- 
culture. 


CHAP.  VII.]  SYSTEM  OF  ALLOWANCES.  95 

ing  on  Saturday  evenings,  where  he  puts  up  each  laborer  by 
name  to  auction ;  and  they  have  been  let  generally  at  from  Is. 
6rf.  to  2s.  per  week,  and  their  provisions  ;  their  families  being 
supported  by  the  parish."  When  we  regard  the  high  price  of 
food  in  1816,  with  the  inability  of  many  tenants  to  pay  poor- 
rates,  we  can  scarcely  be  surprised  at  these  barbarous  attempts 
to  diminish  the  pressure  of  the  allowance  system.  The  whole 
adjustment  of  the  social  relations  between  the  employer  and  the 
laborer,  under  this  system,  was  founded  upon  injustice  and  op- 
pression on  one  hand,  and  fraud  and  improvidence  on  the  other. 
The  farmer  refused  to  employ  the  laborer  till  he  had  reduced 
him,  by  withholding  employment,  to  beggary;  robbed  the  la- 
borer of  his  fair  wages,  to  dole  out  to  him  "  head-money,"  not 
according  to  his  worth,  but  his  necessities;  denied  employ  to  the 
single  laborer  at  all ;  discharged  his  best  workman,  with  a  small 
family,  to  take  on  the  worst,  with  a  large  family  ;  and  left  his 
own  land  uncultivated,  that  a  congregation  of  worthless  idlers 
might  be  paid  upon  the  pretence  of  working  on  the  roads,  while 
the  independent  laborer  was  marked  as  a  fool  for  making  any 
attempt  to  "  earn  his  bread  by  the  sweat  of  his  brow."  The 
authorities  doled  out  their  allowances  upon  the  most  partial  and 
despotic  system.  The  squire,  the  clergyman,  and  the  farmer 
constituted  themselves  a  tribunal  for  the  suppression  of  vice  and 
the  encouragement  of  virtue,  and  they  succeeded  in  producing 
either  desperation  or  hypocrisy  amongst  the  entire  laboring  pop- 
ulation. If  the  junta  was  completed  by  the  addition  of  a  paid 
assistant-overseer,  the  discrimination  was  perfect.  Squalid  filth 
was  the  test  of  destitution,  and  whining  gratitude,  as  it  was 
called,  for  the  alms  distributed,  was  the  test  of  character.  If  a 
laborer  with  a  manly  bearing  came  to  the  overseer,  or  to  the 
vestry,  to  remove  some  sudden  calamity  —  if  he  asked  some- 
thing to  prevent  him  selling  his  bed  —  he  was  insulted.  The 
agonized  tear  of  wounded  pride  might  start  from  the  eye,  and 
perhaps  the  groan  of  suppressed  indignation  escape  from  the 
lips.  If  the  groan  was  heard,  that  man's  ''character"  was  gone 
forever.  The  pretence  to  discriminate  between  the  good  and  the 
evil,  did  much  worse  for  the  community  than  occasional  injus- 
tice. It  led  away  parish  functionaries  from  the  real  object  of 
their  appointment  —  to  administer  relief  to  the  indigent  —  into 
the  belief  that  they  were  the  great  patrons  of  the  whole  labor- 
ing population,  who  could  never  go  alone  without  their  aid. 
They  almost  forced  the  condition  of  pauperism  upon  the  entire 
working  community,  by  their  beautiful  system  of  rewards  and 
punishments.  They  forgot  that  it  was  their  business  to  give 
relief  to  destitution,  and  to  destitution  only ;  and  so  they  es- 
tablished every  sort  of  false  test  of  relief. 


96  HISTOKY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [BOOK  I. 

The  old  workhouse  system  was  as  productive  of  evil  in  prin- 
ciple, though  not  in  amount,  as  the  allowance  system.  The 
wretchedness  of  the  parish  workhouse,  in  consequence  of  bad 
management,  and  the  want  of  order  and  classification,  had  be- 
come a  prominent  feature  in  pictures  of  English  society.  Seldom 
under  any  control,  the  workhouses  afforded  abundant  proof's  of 
neglect  and  want  of  feeling  on  the  part  of  those  who  had  the 
management  of  them.  The  workhouse  master,  who,  probably, 
contracted  for  the  paupers  at  a  certain  rate  per  head,  endeav- 
ored to  remunerate  himself  for  the  hardness  of  his  bargain  by 
disposing  of  the  services  of  the  inmates  to  the  neighboring  far- 
mers. Abuses  had  so  long  existed,  that  they  excited  no  remark. 
No  means  were  taken  to  educate  the  children ;  no  classification 
took  place  between  the  able-bodied ;  but  persons  of  both  sexes, 
the  aged  and  the  young,  the  sick  and  the  lunatic,  were  huddled 
promiscuously  together.  Such  was  the  state  of  most  workhouses 
in  the  rural  districts.  Many  of  the  London  parishes  farmed 
their  poor  —  that  is,  they  contracted  with  individuals  to  maintain 
them  at  a  certain  rate  per  head.  They  were  wretchedly  lodged, 
without  comfort  or  decency ;  ill-fed ;  allowed  the  use  of  ardent 
spirits,  and  encouraged  to  obtain  them,  by  being  suffered  to 
wander  abroad  without  restraint,  to  swell  the  numbers  of  metro- 
politan mendicants.  In  the  parish  workhouses  the  consequences 
of  want  of  classification  and  bad  management  operated  with  the 
greatest  hardship  upon  children.  Habits  were  formed  in  the 
workhouse  which  rendered  the  path  to  respectability  almost  in- 
accessible. These  children  were  disposed  of  under  the  appren- 
ticing system,  and  were  doomed  to  a  dreary  period  of  servitude, 
under  some  needy  master,  who  had  been  tempted  in  the  first 
instance  to  take  them  by  the  offer  of  a  small  premium.  The 
parochial  plan  of  putting  out  children,  with  its  attendant  evils, 
was  a  necessary  consequence  of  the  want  of  training  while  in 
the  workhouse.  If  these  children  had  received  useful  instruc- 
tion, and  been  brought  up  in  habits  of  order  and  industry,  their 
compulsory  distribution  among  the  different  rate-payers  would 
have  been  unnecessary,  as  each  child  would  have  been  as  valu- 
able to  its  master  as  the  children  taken  from  the  independent 
cottager.  Even  in  those  workhouses  where  attempts  were  made 
to  conduct  them  according  to  the  statute  (43d  of  Elizabeth), 
directing  that  the  fund  for  the  relief  of  the  poor  should  be  em- 
ployed in  setting  them  to  work  in  the  poorhouse  or  workhouse, 
there  were  necessarily  the  grossest  mistakes  and  mismanage- 
ment. In  some  of  these  houses  manufacturing  operations  were 
carried  on  ;  and  in  others  land  was  rented,  and  the  inmates  were 
employed  in  agricultural  labor.  Interests  which  never  prosper 
but  in  the  hands  of  private  individuals,  were  expected  to  become 


CHAP.  VII.]  THE  WORKHOUSE   SYSTEM.  97 

productive  ;  notwithstanding  the  great  majority  of  persons  con- 
cerned were  necessarily  impelled  to  foster  abuses  out  of  which 
they  could  advance  their  own  personal  profit.  The  trades  usu- 
ally pursued  were  sack,  linen,  or  cloth  factories,  or  the  manufact- 
ure of  nets.  The  profits  of  the  private  dealer  and  the  wages 
of  the  independent  workmen  were  liable  to  unjust  depreciation, 
for  the  operations  of  the  houses  of  industry  were  not  regulated 
by  the  extent  of  the  demand,  but  would  be  most  active  when  the 
markets  were  glutted.  Workmen  left  the  private  factory  because 
there  was  a  superabundant  supply  of  the  article  which  they  were 
engaged  in  producing,  and  they  entered  into  the  house  of  indus- 
try to  add  still  further  to  the  overstocking  of  the  market.  The 
balance  by  which  the  healthy  state  of  the  demand  and  supply 
could  be  regulated  was  destroyed.  There  is  no  balance  which 
can  he  held  between  (he  funds  for  the  maintenance  of  labor  and 
the  number  of  the  laborers,  but  through  the  uncontrolled  ex- 
change of  capital  and  labor,  each  operating  with  perfect  freedom 
and  perfect  security.  Whenever  the  scales  are  held  by  any 
other  power  than  the  natural  power  of  exchange  —  whenever 
there  is  a  forced  demand  for  labor  produced  by  a  forced  supply 
of  capital  —  the  natural  proportions  of  capital  and  labor  are 
destroyed  by  a  forced  addition  to  the  number  of  laborers.  All 
schemes  for  •'  setting  the  poor  to  work  "  by  unnatural  encourage- 
ments to  labor,  assume  that  "  the  poor  "  is  a  constant  quantity ; 
the  unnatural  encouragement  produces  more  poor,  and  the  funds 
that  have  been  diverted  from  the  regular  labor-market  are  de- 
voured in  an  accelerated  ratio. 

The  poor-law,  as  it  existed  in  full  vigor  at  the  close  of  the 
war,  went  further  than  any  other  human  device  for  diminishing 
the  funds  for  the  maintenance  of  labor,  and  at  the  s;ime  time 
increasing  the  number  of  laborers.  Rewards  for  illegitimate 
children,  rewards  for  children  under  improvident  marriages,  sus- 
tenance for  the  pauper  child  from  the  hour  he  was  born,  in- 
creased sustenance  as  he  grew,  a  large  and  liberal  allowance  for 
him  when  he  prematurely  married  another  pauper ;  and  the 
same  round  again,  till  the  next  pauper  generation  was  quadru- 
pled in  number.  If  these  laws,  intrusted  as  they  were  in  their 
application  to  narrow-minded,  short-sighted,  and  selfish  individ- 
uals, had  been  imposed  upon  us  by  some  dominant  enemy,  for 
the  destruction  of  our  best  interests,  they  could  not  have  more 
effectually  answered  such  an  end.  They  did  two  things  which 
must  produce  misery  and  crime,  and  would  have  produced 
eventual  anarchy,  unless  their  progress  had  been  arrested,  — 
they  destroyed  the  labor-fund,  and  they  increased  the  number  of 
the  laborers.  They  bestowed  on  unproductive  consumers  the 
bread  which  they  took  out  of  the  mouths  of  the  profitable  labor 


98  HISTORY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [Boo*  I. 

ers ;  and  they,  one  by  one,  ground  down  the  profitable  laborers 
to  the  grade  of  unproductive  consumers.  Under  these  laws,  no 
one  was  secure,  and  no  one  was  happy.  The  laborers,  for  whose 
especial  benefit  they  were  alleged  to  be  upheld,  were  the  most 
insecure  and  the  most  unhappy.  The  dream  of  Pharaoh,  that 
"  seven  lean  and  ill-favored  kine  did  eat  up  seven  fat  kine ;  and 
when  they  had  eaten  them  up,  it  could  not  be  known  that  they 
had  eaten  them,  but  they  were  still  ill-favored  as  at  the  begin- 
ning," was  realized  by  the  laborers  of  England  under  the  old 
poor-laws. 

In  1807  Mr.  Whitbread  proposed  to  the  House  of  Commons  a 
very  large  and  comprehensive  measure   of  poor-law 

Education.  CJ          fe  „,,  •      •    i  •-  i      i 

reform.  Ihe  principles  which  he  advocated  were 
those  of  real  statesmanship.  To  arrest  the  constant  progress  of 
pauperism,  he  desired  to  raise  the  character  of  the  laboring 
classes.  He  called  upon  the  country  to  support  a  plan  of  gen- 
eral national  education  ;  he  proposed  a  method  under  which  the 
savings  of  the  poor  might  be  properly  invested  in  a  great  na- 
tional bank.  The  last  object  has  been  fully  accomplished.  How 
little  has  the  government  done  for  the  other  object  during  forty 
years  !  At  the  period  when  Mr.  Whitbread  brought  forward  his 
plan  of  poor-law  reform,  the  system  of  mutual  instruction,  in- 
troduced by  Lancaster  and  Bell,  was  attracting  great  attention. 
Too  much  importance  was  perhaps  at  first  attached  to  the  me- 
chanical means  of  education  then  recently  developed ;  but  the 
influence  was  favorable  to  the  establishment  of  schools  by  socie- 
ties and  individuals.  The  government  left  the  instruction  of  the 
people  to  go  on  as  it  might,  without  a  single  grant  for  more  than 
a  quarter  of  a  century.  It  was  in  vain  that,  in  1807,  Whitbread 
proclaimed  the  important  truth,  that  nothing  can  possibly  afford 
greater  stability  to  a  popular  government  than  the  education  of 
its  people.  u  Contemplate  ignorance  in  the  hand  of  craft  — 
what  a  desperate  weapon  does  it  afford !  How  impotent  does 
craft  become  before  an  instructed  and  enlightened  multitude  !  "  l 
Again :  2  "  In  the  adoption  of  the  system  of  education,  I  foresee 
an  enlightened  peasantry,  frugal,  industrious,  sober,  orderly,  and 
contented ;  because  they  are  acquainted  with  the  true  value  of 
frugality,  sobriety,  industry,  and  order.  Crimes  diminishing, 
because  the  enlightened  understanding  abhors  crime.  The  prac- 
tice of  Christianity  prevailing,  because  the  mass  of  your  popula- 
tion can  read,  comprehend,  and  feel  its  divine  origin,  and  the 
beauty  of  the  doctrines  which  it  inculcates.  Your  kingdom  safe 
from  the  insults  of  the  enemy,  because  every  man  knows  the 
worth  of  that  which  he  is  called  upon  to  defend."  Did  Whit- 
bread take  one  legislative  step  in  advance  by  the  enunciation  of 
1  Hansard,  viii.  p.  877.  *  Ibid.  p.  918. 


CHAP.  VII.]  EDUCATION.  99 

these  truths  ?  He  was  treated  as  a  benevolent  visionary ;  and 
every  particle  of  hi?  poor-law  reform,  and  especially  his  plans 
for  instruction  and  the  investment  of  savings,  were  sneered  away, 
whilst  ministers  and  magistrates  went  on  in  the  usual  course  of 
keeping  the  great  body  of  the  people  ignorant,  dependent,  and 
wretched.  A  man  of  talent,  Mr.  Windham,  put  himself  at  the 
head  of  the  advocates  for  keeping  the  people  from  the  perils  of 
instruction  : 1  "  His  friend,  Dr.  Johnson,  was  of  opinion  that  it 
was  not  right  to  teach  reading  beyond  a  certain  extent  in  society. 
The  danger  was,  that  if  the  teachers  of  the  good  and  the  prop- 
agators of  bad  principles  were  to  be  candidates  for  the  control 

of  mankind,  the  latter  would  be  likely  to  be  too  successful 

The  increase  of  this  sort  of  introduction  to  knowledge  would 
only  tend  to  make  the  people  study  politics,  and  lay  them  open 
to  the  arts  of  designing  men."  This  miserable  logic  answered 
its  end  for  a  season.  Education  was  held  to  be  dangerous  —  at 
least  in  England.  ^In  Ireland,  the  government  encouraged  edu- 
cation. In  1816,  Mr.  Peel,  as  secretary  for  Ireland,  maintained 
that  ''it  was  the  peculiar  duty2  of  a  government  that  felt  the 
inconvenience  that  arose  from  the  ignorance  of  the  present  gen- 
eration, to  sow  the  seeds  of  knowledge  in  the  generation  that 
was  to  succeed."  The  natural  connection  between  ignorance 
and  poverty  was  never  more  clearly  put,  at  a  very  early  period 
of  discussing  such  questions,  than  by  the  present  excellent 
Bishop  of  Chester:  s  "  Ignorance  is  not  the  inevitable  lot  of  the 
majority  of  our  community  ;  and  with  ignorance  a  host  of  evils 
disappear.  Of  all  obstacles  to  improvement,  ignorance  is  the 
most  formidable,  because  the  only  true  secret  of  assisting  the 
poor  is  to  make  them  agents  in  Lettering  their  own  condition, 
and  to  supply  them,  not  with  a  temporary  stimulus,  but  with  a 
permanent  energy.  As  fast  as  the  standard  of  inielligence  is 
raised,  the  poor  become  more  and  more  able  to  cooperate  in  any 
plan  proposed  for  their  advantage,  more  likely  to  listen  to  any 
reasonable  suggestion,  more  able  to  understand,  and  therefore 
more  willing  to  pursue  it.  Hence  it  follows,  that  when  gross 
ignorance  is  once  removed,  and  right  principles  are  introduced, 
a  "Teat  advantage  has  been  already  gained  against  squalid 
poverty.  Many  avenues  to  an  improved  condition  are  opened 
to  one  who-e  faculties  are  enlarged  and  exercised ;  he  sees  his 
own  interest  more  clearly,  he  pursues  it  more  steadily  ;  he  does 
not  study  immediate  gratification  at  the  expense  of  bitter  and 
late  repentance,  or  mortgage  the  labor  of  his  future  life  without 
an  adequate  return.  Indigence,  therefore,  will  rarely  be  found 
in  company  with  good  education." 

i  Hansard,  ix.  p.  548.  2  ibid,  xxxiv.  p.  38. 

*  Sumner's  Kecords  of  the  Creation,  ii.  p.  338. 


100  HISTORY   OF   THE  PEACE.  [Boon  I. 

From  1807  to  the  close  of  the  war,  the  legislature  heard  no 
word  on  the  education  of  the  people.  On  the  21st  May,  1816, 
Mr.  Brougham  moved  for  the  appointment  of  a  select  committee 
to  inquire  into  the  state  of  the  education  of  the  lower  orders  of 
the  people  in  London,  Westminster,  and  Southwark.  The  motion,^ 
which  was  brought  forward  with  great  caution  by  the  mover, 
was  unopposed.  The  committee  made  its  first  report  on  the  20th 
June,  having  conducted  its  inquiries  with  more  than  usual 
activity.  The  energy  of  Mr.  Brougham,  who  acted  as  chairman, 
gave  a  remarkable  impulse  to  this  important  investigation.  It 
was  found  that  in  the  metropolis  there  were  a  hundred  and 
twenty  thousand  children  without  the  means  of  education.  On 
presenting  this  report,  Mr.  Brougham  informed  the  House  *  that 
the  committee  had  comprehended  in  their  objects  inquiries  con- 
cerning the  management  of  the  higher  schools,  such  as  the  Char- 
ter House,  Christ's  Hospital,  and  Westminster ;  the  funds  of  such 
schools  being  originally  destined  for  the  use«pf  the  poor.  The 
principal  labors  of  the  committee  had,  however,  consisted  in 
their  examination  of  evidence  as  to  the  number  and  condition 
of  the  charity  and  parish  schools  destined  for  the  education  of 
the  lower  orders.  The  number  of  such  institutions  exceeded 
anything  that  could  have  been  previously  believed ;  but  the 
expenditure  of  the  funds  was,  in  many  cases,  neither  pure  nor 
judicious.  A  few  were  educated  and  brought  up  —  the  many 
were  neglected.  In  the  country  he  had  heard  of  instances  of 
flagrant  abuses.  Mr.  Brougham's  report  produced  no  hostile 
feelings  on  this  occasion.  Lord  Castlereagh  acknowledged  that 
abuses  existed  in  many  charities  for  the  purposes  of  education, 
and  recommended  the  exercise  of  a  vigilant  superintendence  of 
their  administration.  In  1817  the  committee  was  revived,  but 
was  adjourned  in  consequence  of  the  illness  of  the  chairman  ; 
l>ut  in  1818  it  was  again  appointed,  with  powers  of  inquiry  no 
longer  confined  to  the  metropolis.  Then  the  larger  question  of 
the  extension  of  education  was  merged  in  a  furious  controversy 
as  to  the  amount  of  abuses  in  endowed  charities,  and  the  pro- 
priety of  subjecting  the  higher  schools,  such  as  Eton  and  \Yin- 
chester,  and  also  colleges  in"  the  universities,  to  a  searching  in- 
quiry into  the  nature  of  their  statutes,  and  then-  adherence  to  the 
objects  of  their  foundation.  An  act  was  subsequently  passed,  in 
consequence  of  the  labors  of  the  committee,  to  appoint  commis- 
sioners to  inquire  concerning  the  abuse  of  charities  connected 
with  education  ;  and  by  a  second  act  the  right  of  inquiry  was 
extended  to  all  charities,  the  universities  and  certain  great  foun- 
dation schools  excelled.  The  education  commission  was  thus 
merged  in  the  charity  commission.  Of  the  great  national  beue- 
1  Hansard,  xxxiv.  p.  1232, 


CHAP.  VH.]       THE  EDUCATION  COMMISSION.  101 

fits  that  resulted  from  that  commission  no  one  can  doubt.  But 
it  may  be  doubted  whether  the  controversial  shape-  which  the 
question  of  education  thus  assumed.;  ft:  1'SiS,  did  *rr.i<  h  to  ad- 
vance the  disposition  to  provide :  .a'general  system  of  popular 
instruction  which  prevailed  ia  1816;  ftflieh  iMfvftr&oghain 
first  obtained  his  committee,  he  'said',13 "iris  'proposition  was,  that 
a  measure  for  the  education  of  the  poor  under  parliamentary 
sanction,  and  on  parliamentary  aid,  should  be  tried  in  London ; 
for  without  a  previous  experiment  he  should  not  deem  it  proper 
to  bring  forward  any  general  measure.  But  if  the  experiment 
should  be  found  to  succeed  in  London,  he  would  then  recommend 
the  extension  of  the  plan  to  other  great  town-?."  This  plan  was 
never  carried  out,  or  further  proposed.  When  Mr.  Brougham, 
presented  his  first  report,  there  was  unanimity  and  even  cord- 
iality in  its  reception  by  the  House  of  Commons.  Mr.  Canning 
declared  2  that  "  he  should  contribute  all  his  assistance  to  the 
object  of  the  report,  satisfied  that  the  foundation  of  good  order 
in  society  was  good  morals,  and  that  the  foundation  of  good 
morals  was  education." 

What  was  the  temper  of  the  House  and  of  the  country  in 
1818  is  strikingly  exhibited  in  a  speech  of  Mr.  Brougham's  in 
1835  :a  "  In  the  year  1818  the  labors  of  the  education  committee 
of  the  House  of  Commons  —  labors  to  which  no  man  can  attach 
too  high  a  value  —  were  made  the  subject  of  great  controversy  ; 
a  controversy  as  fierce  and  uncompromising  as  almost  any  that 
ever  raged,  and  to  which  I  only  refer  as  affording  another  rea- 
son for  the  hope  I  so  fondly  cherish,  that  though  now,  perhaps, 
in  a  minority  upon  this,  as  upon  many  other  questions  here  de- 
bated, I  yet  may  ultimately  find  myself  with  scarcely  an  antago- 
nist. That  bitter  controversy  is  at  an  end  —  the  heats  which  it 
kindled  are  extinguished  —  the  matter  that  engendered  those 
heats  finds  equal  acceptance  with  all  parties.  Those  are  now 
still,  or  assenting,  or  even  supporting  me,  who  then  thought  that 
I  was  sowing  broadcast  the  seeds  of  revolution,  and  who  scrupled 
not  to  accuse  me  as  aiming  at  the  '  dictatorship,1  by  undermin- 
ing the  foundations  of  all  property.  Those  who  once  held  that 
the  education  committee  was  pulling  down  the  church  by  pulling 
down  the  universities  and  the  great  schools  —  that  my  only 
design  could  be  to  raise  some  strange  edifice  of  power  upon  the 
ruins  of  all  our  institutions,  ecclesiastical  and  civil  —  have  long 
ceased  to  utter  even  a  whisper  against  whatever  was  then  accom- 
plished, and  have  become  my  active  coadjutors  ever  since.  Nay, 
the  very  history  of  that  fierce  contention  is  forgotten.  There 

1  Hansard,  xxxiv.  p.  635.  the  Education  of  the  People:  Speechea, 

2  Ibid.  p.  1235.  iii.  p.  220. 
•  Speech  hi  the  House  of  Lords  on 


102  HISTORY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [Boon  I. 

are  few  now  aware  of  a  controversy  having  ever  existed, 
which,- a-fevy  years  back,  agitated  all  men  all  over  the  country ; 
and  the  measures  ts'hen-  propounded  among  revilings  and  execra- 
tions, have  long  since  become  the  law  of  the  land.  I  doubt 
whet&e)r,'  a*  '^is  moment;  there  -are  above  some  half-dozen  of 
your  lordships  who  recollect  anything  about  a  warfare  which 
for  months  raged  with  unbated  fury,  both  within  the  walls  of  the 
universities  and  without  —  which  seemed  to  absorb  all  men's  at- 
tention, and  to  make  one  class  apprehend  the  utter  destruction 
of  our  political  system,  while  it  filled  others  with  alarm  lest  a 
stop  should  be  put  to  the  advancement  of  the  human  mind. 
That  all  those  violent  animosities  should  have  passed  away,  and 
that  all  those  alarms  be  now  sunk  in  oblivion,  affords  a  mem- 
orable instance  of  the  strange  aberrations  —  I  will  not  say  of 
public  opinion,  but  —  of  party  feeling,  in  which  the  history  of 
controversy  so  largely  abounds.  I  have  chiefly  dwelt  upon  it  to 
show  why  I  again  trust  that  I  may  outlive  the  storms  which  still 
are  gathering  round  those  who  devote  themselves  rather  to  the 
improvement  of  their  fellow-creatures  than  the  service  of  a  fac- 
tion." From  some  unhappy  prejudice,  from  apathy,  or  from 
cowardice,  the  education  of  the  people  made  small  legislative 
progress  for  twenty  yeai'S.  Perhaps  the  old  fable  of  the  sun 
and  the  wind,  experimenting  upon  the  removal  of  the  traveller's 
cloak,  may  afford  us  some  solution  of  this  problem.  But  the 
reports  of  the  education  committee  were  of  the  highest  value  in 
showing  us  the  extent  of  instruction  at  the  time  of  its  labors. 
There  were  18,500  schools,  educating  644,000  children  ;  of  this 
number  1 66,000  were  educated  at  endowed  schools,  and  478,000 
at  unendowed  schools,  during  six  days  of  the  week.  This  num- 
ber was  independent  of  Sunday-schools,  of  which  there  were 
5100,  attended  by  452,000  children  ;  but  of  course,  many  of  these 
Sunday-scholars  were  included  in  the  returns  of  other  schools. 

In  the  plan  of  poor-law  reform  brought  forward  by  Mr.  Whit- 
gavings-  bread  in  1807,  he  earnestly  advocated  the  considera- 
Banks.  tjon  of  a  mo(je  by  which  the  savings  of  the  poor  might 

be  safely  and  profitably  invested  :*  "  I  would  propose  the  estab- 
lishment of  one  great  national  institution,  in  the  nature  of  a 
bank,  for  the  use  ;md  advantage  of  the  laboring  classes  alone  ; 
that  it  should  be  placed  in  the  metropolis,  and  be  under  the  con- 
trol and  management  of  proper  persons,  to  be  appointed  accord- 
ing to  the  provisions  contained  in  the  bill  I  shall  move  for  leave 
to  introduce  ;  that  every  man  who  shall  be  certified  by  one  jus- 
tice, to  his  own  knowledge,  or  on  proof,  to  subsist  principally  or 
alone  by  the  wages  of  his  labor,  shall  be  at  liberty  to  remit  to 
the  accountant  of  the  poor's  fund  —  as  I  would  designate  it  — 
1  Hansard,  viii.  p.  889. 


CHAP.  VII]  SAVINGS-BANKS.  103 

in  notes  or  cash,  any  sum  from  20s.  upwards  ;  but  not  exceeding 
201.  in  any  one  year,  nor  more  in  the  whole  than  200L  That 
once  in  every  week  the  remittances  of  the  preceding  week  be 
laid  out  in  the  3  per  cent,  consolidated  bank  annuities,  or  in  some 
other  of  the  government  stocks,  in  the  name  of  commissioners  to 
be  appointed ;  to  avoid  all  minute  payments,  no  dividend  to  be 
remitted  till  it  shall  amount  to  10s. ;  and  that  all  fractional  sums 
under  10s.  be  from  time  to  time  reinvested,  in  order  to  be  ren- 
dered productive  towards  the  expenses  of  the  office."  Three  or 
four  years  previous,  Mr.  Malthus,  in  his  "  Essay  on  Population," 
had  argued  that  "  it  mi<jht  be  extremely  useful  to  have  county 
banks,  where  the  smallest  sums  would  be  received,  and  a  fair 
interest  granted  for  them."  Mr.  George  Rose  had,  as  early  as 
1793,  legislated  for  the  encouragement  of  friendly  societies.  In 
1798  a  bank  for  the  earnings  of  poor  children  was  established  at 
Tottenham  ;  and  this  was  found  so  successful,  that  a  bank  for  the 
safe  deposit  of  the  savings  of  servants,  laborers,  and  others,  was 
opened  at  the  same  place  in  1804.  Interest  was  here  allowed 
to  the  depositors.  A  similar  institution  was  founded  at  Bath  in 
1808.  But  the  greatest  experiment  upon  the  possibility  of  the 
laboring  poor  making  considerable  savings  was  tried  in  Scotland. 
"  The  Parish  Bank  Friendly  Society  of  Ruthwell "  was  estab- 
lished by  the  Rev.  Henry  Duncan  in  1810.  The  first  London 
savings-bank  did  riot  commence  its  operations  till  January,  1816. 
In  the  parliamentary  session  of  18 10,  Mr.  Rose  brought  in  a 
bill  for  the  regulation  of  savings-banks,  which  was  subsequently 
withdrawn  for  revision.  Of  the  possible  benefits  of  these  insti- 
tutions there  could  be  no  doubt  in  the  minds  of  all  men  who 
were  anxious  to  improve  the  condition  of  the  people.  Writers 
of  opposite  parties  agreed  in  this  matter :  "  Savings-banks l  are 
spreading  rapidly  through  Scotland  ;  and  we  expect  soon  to  hear 
the  like  good  tidings  from  England,  where  such  an  institution  is 
of  still  greater  importance.  It  would  be  difficult,  we  fear,  to 
convince  either  the  people  or  their  rulers  that  such  an  event  is 
of  far  more  importance  and  far  more  likely  to  increase  the  hap- 
piness, and  even  the  greatness  of  the  nation,  than  the  most  bril- 
liant success  of  its  arms,  or  the  most  stupendous  improvements 
of  its  trade  or  its  agriculture.  And  yet  we  are  persuaded  that 
it  is  so."  Again  : 2  "  They  to  whom  this  subject  is  indifferent 
may  censure  our  minuteness  ;  but  those  who,  like  us,  regard  it 
as  marking  an  era  in  political  economy,  and  as  intimately  con- 
nected with  the  external  comfort  and  moral  improvement  of  man- 
kind, will  be  gratified  to  trace  the  rise  and  progress  of  one  of 
the  simplest  and  most  efficient  plans  which  has  ever  been  devised 
for  effecting  these  invaluable  purposes."  The  language  of  the 
1  Edinburgh  Review,  June,  1815.  2  Quarterly  Review,  October,  1816. 


104  HISTORY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [BOOK  I. 

real  philanthropist,  whatever  be  his  party,  may  be  easily  distin- 
guished from  the  language  of  the  demagogue  :  "  What  a  bubble  ! * 
At  a  time  when  it  is  notorious  that  one  half  of  the  whole  nation 
are  in  a  state  little  short  of  starvation  ;  when  it  is  notorious  that 
hundreds  of  thousands  of  families  do  not  know,  when  they  rise, 
where  they  are  to  find  a  meal  during  the  day;  when  the  far 
greater  part  of  the  whole  people,  much  more  than  half  of  them, 
are  paupers  ;  at  such  a  time  to  bring  forth  a  project  for  collect- 
ing the  savings  of  journeymen  and  laborers,  in  order  to  be  lent 
to  the  government,  and  to  form  a  fund  for  the  support  of  the 
lenders  in  sickness  and  old  age  !  "  The  most  sanguine  expecta- 
tions of  the  promoters  of  savings-banks  could  scarcely  have  antici- 
pated that,  within  less  than  thirty  years,  the  number  of  in-titu- 
tions  in  existence  would  amount  to  577  in  the  United  Kingdom  ;2 
that  the  total  number  of  existing  depositors  would  be  1,012,475  ; 
that  they  would  possess  an  aggregate  of  property  amounting  to 
31.275.fi86/. :  and  that  the  whole  number  of  depositors  would 
have  received  interest  amounting  to  16,254,109/.8 

There  is  one  other  measure  of  social  improvement  from  which 
Elgin  Mar-  we  cannot  withhold  a  slight  notice.  In  1816  the 
bies.  House  of  Commons  passed  a  vote  for  the  purchase  of 

the  Elgin  Marbles,  for  the  sum  of  35,OOOA  This  was  the  first 
step  that  the  British  legislature  had  made  in  the  encouragement 
of  the  fine  arts.  It  was  a  step  in  the  education  of  the  people. 
Mr.  Croker,  who,  as  it  appears  to  us,  was  far  in  advance  of  his 
time  on  this  subject,  truly  and  eloquently  said  what  cannot  be 
too  often  repeated  in  the  consideration  of  such  questions  :  *  "  The 
House  had  been  warned,  in  the  present  circumstances  of  the 
country,  not  to  incur  a  heavy  expense  merely  to  acquire  works 
of  ornament.  But  who  was  to  pay  this  expense,  and  for  whose 
use  was  the  purchase  intended  ?  The  bargain  was  for  the  bene- 
fit of  the  public,  for  the  honor  of  the  nation,  for  the  promotion 
of  national  arts,  for  the  use  of  the  national  artists,  and  even  for 
the  advantage  of  our  manufactures,  the  excellence  of  which  de- 
pended on  the  progress  of  the  arts  in  the  country.  It  was  sin- 
gular that  when,  two  thousand  five  hundred  years  ago,  Pericles 
was  adorning  Athens  with  those  very  works,  some  of  which  we 
are  now  about  to  acquire,  the  same  cry  of  economy  was  raised 
against  him,  and  the  same  answer  that  he  then  gave  might  be 
repeated  now :  that  it  was  money  spent  for  the  use  of  the  peo- 
ple, for  the  encouragement  of  arts,  the  increase  of  manufactures, 
the  prosperity  of  trades,  and  the  encouragement  of  industry ; 

1  Cobbett's  Register,  Jan.  4, 1817.        banks  and  depositors,  and  amount  of 

2  -Mr.  Tidd  Pratt' s  Report,  184G.  deposits,   have  been    much    increased 
*  This  return  is  from  August,  1817,    since  the  making  up  of  the  return. 

to  November,  1844.     The  number  of        4  Hansard,  xxxiv.  p.  1034. 


CHAP.  VII.]  THE  ELGIN  MARBLES.  10$ 

not  merely  to  please  tlie  eye  of  the  man  of  taste,  but  to  create, 
to  stimulate,  to  guide  the  exertions  of  the  artist,  the  mechanic, 
and  even  the  laborer,  and  to  spread  through  all  the  branches  of 
society  a  spirit  of  improvement,  and  the  means  of  a  sober  and 
industrious  affluence."  Slowly,  indeed,  have  these  great  prin- 
ciples progressed  —  but  they  have  progressed. 


JOS  HISTORY  OF  THE  PEACE.  IBoou:  L 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

0 

A  BRIEF  sketch  must  here  be  given  of  the  Spanish  colonies  in 
Spanish  South  America  —  of  their  condition  and  prospects.  If 
America.  jj  js  asked  why  we  must  stop  to  review  the  colonial 
affairs  of  another  kingdom,  —  the  answer  is,  that  England  had, 
at  this  time,  as  much  interest  in  the  colonies  of  Spain,  as  Spain 
and  France  had,  forty  years  before,  in  the  condition  and  prospects 
of  her  North  American  colonies.  The  powers  of  Europe  were  to 
be  coerced  or  supported,  punished  or  aided,  by  action  upon  their 
possessions  beyond  the  Atlantic.  We  find,  accordingly,  that, 
through  a  long  succession  of  administrations,  the  movements  of 
Spanish  America  were  watched  and  discussed,  with  deep  inter- 
est, in  the  British  cabinet. 

The  Spanish  possessions  in  America  were  at  first  divided  into 
two  viceroyalties  —  that  of  Mexico  in  the  northern,  and  that  of 
Peru  in  the  southern  continent.  In  course  of  time,  two  more 
viceroyalties  were  detached  from  the  southern  portions  —  those 
of  New  Grenada  and  Rio  de  la  Plata;  and  then  again,  five 
smaller  provinces  were  parted  off,  under  the  name  of  captain- 
generalships.  While  Brazil,  now  belonging  to  Portugal,  had 
once  been  jointly  held  by  Spain ;  while  some  West  India  islands 
were  changing  hands,  according  to  the  chances  of  war;  while 
the  British  colonies  were  establishing  their  own  independence ; 
und  while  Florida  and  Louisiana  were  transferred  by  purchase 
or  negotiation  from  one  crown  to  another,  it  was  hardly  possible 
that  the  Spanish  colonies  should  not  have  ideas  and  feelings 
about  their  own  position,  and  originate  movements  accordingly. 

The  first  stir  was  in  1750,  when  Venezuela  revolted  against 
Spain.  For  the  next  forty  years,  risings  became  more  frequent, 
and  almost  every  province  rebelled  once  or  oftener.  The  inhabi- 
tants suffered  under  gross  misgovernment.  There  were  three 
classes  of  them :  the  natives,  the  Spaniards,  and  the  mixed  race 
which  always  grows  up  under  such  circumstances.  Those  born 
in  the  colonies,  even  of  European  blood,  were,  though  legally 
entitled  to  all  the  privileges  of  citizenship,  depressed  and  insulted 
by  the  mother-country,  and  the  official  persons  she  sent  out.  The 
European  officials  not  only  engrossed  all  the  dignities  and  sala- 


CHAP.  VIII.]     SPANISH  AMERICAN  COLONIES.  107 

ries  of  the  colonies,  but  vexed  and  despoiled  the  inhabitants  by 
oppressive  customs,  audacious  self-seeking,  and  malpractices, 
against  which  no  complaint  was  listened  to.  Though  insulated 
colonial  risings  are  of  no  immediate  avail,  a  sufficient  number  of 
them  is  sure  to  suggest  ideas  of  national  independence.  Such 
suggestions  were  spoken  into  the  ear  of  Mr.  Pitt  in  1790,  by  a 
man  who  had  much  to  say  of  the  natural  advantages  of  his  coun- 
try beyond  the  Atlantic,  and  of  the  benefits  to  Great  Britain,  if 
the  South  American  continent  were  enabled  to  develop  its  re- 
sources, and  become  the  home  of  a  rising  nation. 

General  Miranda,  a  native  of  Caraccas,  in  Venezuela,  was 
born  about  the  time  when  the  revolt,  mentioned  above,  took 
place.  His  mind  was  early  occupied  with  the  ideas  naturally 
generated  by  that  revolt.  He  witnessed,  in  personal  presence,  a 
part  of  the  war  by  which  the  British  provinces  became  the 
United  States ;  and  he  made  it  the  aim  of  his  life  to  obtain  a 
similar  emancipation  for  the  Spanish  colonies.  He  made  no  se- 
cret of  his  purpose.  In  the  London  "Political  Herald"  of  1785, 
there  is  a  notice  of  Miranda  being  in  town,  in  pursuit  of  his  ob- 
ject,—  the  deliverance  of  his  country.  In  1790,  when  there 
was  a  dispute  between  England  and  Spain  about  Nootka  Sound, 
Miranda  obtained  access  to  Mr.  Pitt,  and  spread  before  him  the 
picture  of  what  the  great  continent  was,  and  could  do.  It  was 
larger  than  Europe;  it  was  more  fertile,  naturally,  than  Europe; 
it  possessed  the  little  strait  which,  cut  through,  would  open  to 
the  merchant-ships  of  Europe,  the  vast  regions  of  the  Pacific, 
saving  them  the  long  sweep  towards  the  South  Pole,  which  they 
must  make  to  round  Cape  Horn  or  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope ;  it 
was  veined  with  vast  navigable  rivers,  which  would  bring  to  the 
coast  the  produce  of  the  plains ;  and  the  prodigious  backbone  of 
mountains  enclosed  treasures  of  ore.  As  for  the  people,  they 
were  ignorant,  debased,  quarrelsome,  at  present ;  but  indepen- 
dence would  ennoble  them,  and  gratitude  would  bind  them  in 
eternal  alliance  with  the  country  which  should  aid  them  to  ob- 
tain independence.  So  said  Miranda  to  Mr.  Pitt.  Perhaps  the 
minister  saw  more  clearly  than  the  applicant,  that  the  popular 
faults  he  admitted,  however  corrigible  by  independence,  were 
sadly  in  the  way  of  obtaining  it.  England  did  not  then  under- 
take the  business.  Mr.  Pitt  thought  well  of  the  project,  and 
promised  to  proceed  in  it  if  Spain  should  be  obstinate  about 
Nootka  Sound.  Spain  yielded ;  and  Mr.  Pitt  then  told  Miranda 
that  his  scheme  should  not  be  lost  sight  of.  He  added,  what 
proved  to  be  very  true,  that  it  "  would  infallibly  engage  the  atten- 
tion of  every  minister  of  this  country." 

In  1797,  when  England  became  possessed  of  Trinidad,  Mr. 
Pitt  remembered  Miranda  and  his  measure.  Our  governor  of 


108  fflSTORY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [Boos  L 

Trinidad  encounured  the  inhabitants  of  the  Spanish  colonies  to 
rise,  relying  on  aid  from  Great  Britain,  to  be  given  without  any 
other  aim  than  enabling  the  colonists  to  achieve  their  own  in- 
dependence. In  the  next  year.  Miranda  came  to  London  from 
France,  to"  lay  his  plans  before  the  British  government.  His 
plans  were,  that  England,  the  United  States,  and  the  Spanish 
provincials,  should  form  an  alliance  to  rescue  the  colonies  from 
Spain.  Great  Britain  was  to  furnish  money  and  ships,  for  which 
she  was  to  be  hereafter  repaid  in  the  sum  of  30,000,000^. ;  and  the 
United  States  were  to  supply  10,000  men.  Mr.  Piit  agreed; 
and  the  plan  waited  only  for  the  acquiescence  of  the  United 
States.  President  Adams  demurred  and  delayed ;  but  the  scheme 
was  not  given  up  ;  and  we  find  it  laid  afresh  before  the  Adding- 
ton  administration  in  1801. 

Within  this  cabinet,  the  schemes  of  government  for  the  new 
states  were  discussed,  and  the  military  movements  arranged  for 
the  outbreak,  when  the  Peace  of  Amiens  again  suspended  the 
subject.  When  war  broke  out  afresh,  and  it  was  seen  that 
Spain  would  go  with  France,  the  preparations  were  resumed, 
now  once  more  under  Mr.  Pitt.  Lord  Melville  and  Sir  Home 
Popham  were  in  full  communication  with  Miranda,  when  the 
third  coalition,  on  which  Mr.  Pitt  stake  1  the  last  hopes  of  his 
hopeful  life,  was  formed ;  and  it  was  confidently  expected  that 
Napoleon  would  be  put  down  from  that  quarter.  The  secret  of 
the  American  enterprise  had  oozed  out  before  this  time.  It,  no 
doubt,  gave  Napoleon  a  new  hold  on  the  Spanish  Bourbons.  It 
was  discussed  in  both  their  courts;  and  also  among  the  allies, 
now  gathering  in  Germany.  Miranda  proceeded  to  the  United 
States,  to  organize  there  his  revolutionary  plans,  in  full  reliance 
on  British  aid  from  Trinidad.  This  aid  he  received,  in  the  form 
of  ships  of  war  and  small  vessels,  which  were  to  support  him  in 
an  invading  expedition;  but  suddenly,  in  the  summer  of  1806, 
he  was  warned  to  expect  no  more  active  assistance,  but  only  pro- 
tection from  the  enemy.  The  reason  of  this  change  was  that 
Mr.  Pitt  was  dead,  and  Lord  Grenville  in  power. 

It  appears  remarkable  that  the  Tory  governments,  which  had 
regarded  with  no  good-will  the  independence  of  the  United 
States,  should  be  the  supporters  of  the  revolutionary  party  in 
South  America,  and  soon  afterwards  in  Spain :  while  the  Whigs 
were  those  who  disappointed  Miranda,  and  groaned  over  the 
Peninsular  war  as  dolefully  as  over  the  American  war  of  1812. 
It  was  said  at  the  time,  that  it  was  at  the  desire  of  Russia  that 
Fox  drew  back  from  the  South  American  cause.  However  -that 
might  be.  all  the  party  prepossessions  of  the  Whigs  were  against 
the  cause  of  independence.  They  had  seen  South  America 
played  off  against  the  North  in  our  American  war ;  and  they  had 


CHAP.  VIII.]    ENGLAND  AND   SOUTH  AMERICA.  109 

seen  Pitt  plant  his  hopes  on  the  South  American  provinces  in 
the  continental  war  which  they  disapproved.  So,  as  soon  as  the 
Grenville  ministry  came  into  power,  it  looked  coldly  on  the  pro- 
teges of  its  predecessors. 

It'  the  Grenville  ministry  would  not  help  South  America  to 
free  itself,  it  contemplated  the  subjugation  of  that  continent. 
Sir  Home  Popham's  expedition  from  the  Cape  against  Buenos 
Ayres  was,  as  has  been  related,  his  own  scheme  altogether.  He 
could  plead  no  authorization  from  the  government  at  home.  But, 
as  we  have  seen,  the  government  at  home  adopted  his  scheme, 
and  proceeded  upon  his  beginnings.  We  remember  Sir  S. 
Auclimuty's  expedition  to  Mo.ite  Video,  and  General  Craufurd's 
to  Chili  ;  the  last  being  turned  from  its  track  to  afford  aid  to  the 
unhappy  General  Wbitelocke  in  his  attack  on  Buenos  Ayres. 
We  have  a  letter  from  Mr.  Windham,  then  Secretary  at  War  — 
a  '•  most  secret "  letter  to  General  Craufurd  —  which  desires  that 
officer  to  keep  down,  by  all  means  whatever,  the  insurrectionary 
spirit  in  the  South  American  provinces,  and  to  preserve  the  old 
methods  of  government,  merely  transferring  the  allegiance  and 
obedience  of  the  people  from  the  King  of  Spain  to  the  King  of 
Great  Britain.  Mr.  Windham  and  his  colleagues  left,  as  one  of 
their  disastrous  bequests,  the  Buenos  Ayres  expedition ;  and  the 
next  cabinet  was  that  of  the  Duke  of  Portland. 

The  Portland  cabinet  recurred  to  the  Pitt  and  Addington 
policy.  Every  effort  was  made,  that  so  weak  a  government 
could  make,  to  afford  assistance  to  the  South  American  patriots. 
It  is  believed  that,  when  the  harbor  of  Cork  was  tilling  with 
transports,  in  the  summer  of  1808,  and  when  Sir  Arthur  Welles- 
ley  was  preparing  for  foreign  service,  everybody  was  looking 
across  the  Atlantic  for  the  battle-field.  To  vSir  Arthur's  Indian 
wars  would  now  have  succeeded  American  victories,  if  the  sud- 
den uprising  of  Spain  against  Napoleon  had  not  called  the  Brit- 
ish general  and  his  forces  to  the  Peninsula.  If  Wellesley  had 
gone  to  South  America,  the  independence  of  the  colonies  there 
would  have  presently  followed  ;  but  they  were  far  from  being 
forsaken,  or  from  feeling  themselves  left  in  the  lurch,  by  the  scene 
of  the  struggle  being  fixed  in  Europe.  From  the  moment  that 
the  army  of  Napoleon  crossed  the  Bidassoa,  the  favor  of  the 
Spanish  American  colonies  was  bid  for  by  every  power  more  or 
less  concerned  in  the  Peninsular  conflict ;  and  this  gave  occasion 
"to  Lord  Liverpool  to  avow  the  policy  which,  on  Mr.  Perceval's 
becoming  premier,  lie  proposed  to  his  cabinet,  in  regard  to  the 
colonial  dominions  of  Spain.  He  distinctly  declared,  that,  while 
aiding  Spain  to  d.ive  out  her  invaders,  the  English  government 
could  not  consent  to  weaken  her  by  detaching  her  colonies.  If, 
however,  Spain  should  be  compelled  to  succumb  to  Napoleon, 


HO  HISTORY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [BOOK  L 

then  the  aid  of  England  would  be  given  to  sever  the  colonies 
from  their  European  connection,  in  order  that  they  might  form 
no  part  of  French  Spain,  but  remain  purely  Spanish,  as  a  refuge 
for  emigrants  from  old  Spain,  and  a  representative  of  ihe  mon- 
archy. Before  this,  Caraccas  had  risen.  Lord  Liverpool  treated 
the  mistake  indulgently,  ascribing  it  to  erroneous  impressions  of 
the  intentions  and  conduct  of  the  home  government,  and  invit- 
ing the  people  back  to  a  dutiful  and  honorable  place  as  "  an  in- 
tegral part  of  the  empire."  This  letter  was  written  in  June, 
1810. 

It  is  impossible  to  say  what  might  have  been  the  destiny  of 
these  colonies,  if  the  citizens  at  5ladrid  had  not  cut  the  traces 
of  the  royal  carriages  on  that  memorable  evening  of  March, 
1808,  when  the  Bourbons  of  Spain  were  about  to  set  forth  for 
their  American  dominions,  as  the  Braganza>  of  Portugal  had  done 
four  months  before.  By  the  time  Lord  Liverpool's  letter  was 
received  and  published,  Brazil  was  like  another  coun- 
try from  that  which  had  been  known  by  the  name. 
Her  ports  were  opened  ;  her  restrictions  were  removed ;  manu- 
factures sprang  up ;  newspapers  circulated ;  and  it  seems  as  if  a 
specimen  of  European  civilization  had  been  suddenly  set  down 
in  the  most  conspicuous  part  of  the  South  American  continent. 
Something  like  this  must  have  happened  with  the  other  prov- 
inces, if  the  Spanish  royal  family  had  arrived ;  but  the  people 
of  Madrid  had  cut  the  traces,  and  hunted  Godoy  into  a  garret  ; 
the  family  went  into  a  shameful  captivity  at  Bayonne,  instead  of 
crossing  the  Atlantic ;  and  the  Spanish  provincials  had  to  aci 
according  to  their  own  discretion. 

They  found  this  discretion  a  serious  charge.  The  difficul'y  to 
know  what  to  do  was  so  great,  that  disunion  was  seen  to  be  inev- 
itable from  the  beginning.  Their  allegiance  was  asked  for,  in 
1808,  by  Murat,  as  lieutenant-general,  in  the  name  of  Charles 
IV. ;  and  presently  after,  by  the  council  of  Ferdinand,  established 
by  him  at  Madrid,  between  his  father's  abdication,  and  his  own 
departure  for  Bayonne;  then  by  the  juntas  of  Seville  and  Cadiz, 
appointed  to  carry  on  the  affairs  of  the  nation.  The  keen  eye 
of  Napoleon  was  also  upon  them.  In  July,  1808,  a  vessel 
arrived  at  the  port  of  Caraccas.  charged  with  letters  and  secret 
instructions  for  the  governor,  who  had  received  Murat's  agents 
with  apparent  cordiality.  The  French  captain  had  his  audience 
of  the  governor,  and  was  pleased  with  his  reception  ;  but,  in  an 
hour  after,  an  English  captain  —  Captain  Beaver,  of  the  Acasta 
—  presented  himself  also  for  audience.  He  was  sent  away,  and 
desired  to  return  in  two  hours.  He  spent  those  two  hours  in 
addressing  the  people  in  the  streets,  finding  them  wholly  ignorant 
of  the  state  of  the  mother-country,  and  of  what  the  French  had 


CHAP.  VIII.]  PARTIES  IN  MEXICO.  HI 

been  doing  there.  When  he  had  told  the  story,  the  inhabitants 
paraded  the  streets,  bearing  the  portrait  of  Ferd'nand  VII., 
which  they  installed  in  the  government-house,  surrounded  by 
lights  and  an  enthusiastic  crowd  for  the  whole  night.  The 
French  captain  fled  for  his  life ;  and  Beaver,  hastening  after  him, 
captured  him  and  his  brig  in  the  course  of  a  few  days.  To  the 
other  provinces,  Napoleon  sent  circulars  and  agents.  The  proc- 
lamations of  King  Joseph  were  torn  in  pieces,  and  the  agents 
driven  away ;  and  some  few  were  killed.  In  this  and  the  next 
year,  the  provinces  transmitted  to  Spain  not  less  than  ninety 
millions  of  dollars  in  support  of  the  national  cause.  This  was 
done  by  the  enthusiasm  of  the  people,  who  were  thinking  of 
national,  and  not  personal,  interests.  It  appears,  however,  that 
their  rulers,  and  most  of  the  officials  and  provincial  aristocracy, 
were  less  decided  in  their  aims  and  wishes.  As  long  as  tliey 
could  be  secure  of  the  maintenance  of  the  connection  between 
the  mother-country  and  the  colonies,  they  preferred  that  their 
own  royal  family  should  remain  on  the  throne  ;  but,  rather  than 
run  any  risk  of  separation,  they  would  have  acknowledged  King 
Joseph.  As  the  French  successes  in  Spain  became  more  and 
more  decided,  the  provincial  rulers  grew  more  open  in  their  evi- 
dences of  adhesion ;  and  it  is  said  that  the  viceroy  of  Mexico 
was  the  only  official  personage  throughout  the  Spanish  colonies 
who  was  not  ready  to  transfer  his  allegiance  to  Joseph,  when  the 
news  arrived  of  the  occupation  of  Madrid  by  the  French. 

Mexico  was  the  most  flourishing  of  the  Spanish  colonies,  and 
by  far  the  least  oppressed  from  home ;  yet  the  course 

T.  ,     ..         ,  J  i       Mexico. 

ot  revolution  began  there.  As  soon  as  the  people 
were  officially  appealed  to  for  sympathy  on  behalf  of  their  cap- 
tive king,  they  raised  their  voices  in  one  chorus  of  loyalty.  It 
was  clear  that  the  Bonapartes  had  no  chance  with  the  inhabitants 
of  Mexico.  It  was  proposed  to  call  together  representatives  of 
the  people,  and  to  establish  a  council  or  junta  for  the  province,  in 
imitation  of  that  of  the  mother-country.  The  audiencia,  or 
supreme  court,  appointed  from  Europe,  objected  to  this,  as  a  rev- 
olutionary proceeding,  and  arrested  the  governor  in  his  bed, 
deposed  him,  and  lodged  him  in  the  prisons  of  the  Inquisition, 
because  he  appeared  to  favor  the  proposal.  The  Creoles  were 
irretrievably  offended  by  this  virtual  sentence  of  exclusion  from 
provincial  office  and  influence ;  and  at  once  the  struggle  became 
one  between  the  European  and  the  native  citizens,  and  the 
question  was  which  party  should  be  held  to  represent  the  home 
government.  The  Europeans  assumed  that  they  did  ;  and  they 
set  up  a  governor  in  the  person  of  an  archbishop  from  Spain. 
The  Creoles  maintained  that  the  liberal  governor  had  been  wrong- 
fully deposed,  and  that  the  authority  of  the  king  had  been  out- 


112  HISTORY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [BOOK  I. 

raged  in  his  person.  The  juntas  at  home  supported  the 
European  party,  and  showed  no  disposition  to  conciliate  the 
Creoles.  The  audiencia  at  Mexico  was  praised  for  what  it  had 
done,  and  authorized  to  administer  the  government.  When  there 
was  talk  at  Cadiz  of  admitting  a  representation  from  the  colonies, 
all  citizens  of  a  mixed  race  were  excluded ;  and,  in  fact,  no 
representatives  found  their  way  from  Mexico  to  Cadiz  at  all. 
Some  few,  before  resident  at  Cadiz,  were  chosen  on  the  spot,  and 
admitted  ;  but  it  was  a  foolish  an;!  dangerous  mockery.  A  cer- 
tain degree  of  commercial  freedom  was  granted,  and  then  denied. 
Meantime,  the  insults  of  the  Europeans  in  the  province  became 
intolerable ;  and,  in  1809,  a  revolt  was  planned,  which  was 
obviated  by  timely  arrests.  In  September,  1810,  there  was 
a  rising  against  the  Europeans,  attended  with  mucli  cruelty, 
throughout  almost  the  whole  province;  but  the  c  tv  of  Mexico 
was  held  against  the  insurgents  by  a  new  viceroy  just  arrived  ; 
and  in  November,  and  again  in  January,  it  was  believed  that  the 
royal  cause  was  made  secure.  It  was  not  so,  however.  The 
conflict  revived,  as  often  as  it  seemed  exhausted,  for  some  years. 
When  the  Spanish  constitution  of  1812  was  promulgated  in  the 
colonies,  it  seemed  as  if  the  Europeans  were  annihilated  as  a 
political  party;  and  all  offices  were  filled  at  once  by  natives; 
and  the  first  outbreak  of  the  freedom  of  the  press  terrified  all 
who  had  ever  been  connected  with  the  government.  But,  in 
1814,  Ferdinand  abolished  the  constitution,  on  his  return  to 
Spain,  and  it  was  expected  that  the  Europeans  in  Mexico  would 
recover  their  spirits.  It  was  too  late  for  this.  The  viceroy 
wrote  to  his  court  that  the  desire  for  independence  had  become 
too  strong  to  be  met  by  any  military  policy.  The  name  of  the 
king  was  still  used  by  the  independents,  but  in  no  sense  which 
could  interiere  with  their  res^l^tion  to  govern  themselves.  The 
towns  mi.rht,  he  said,  be  garrisoned  with  royalists ;  but  the 
whole  country  was  disposed  in  favor  of  the  independence  of 
Mexico.  For  his  own  part,  he  wa*  willing  to  undertake  the 
military  occupation  of  the  province,  if  authorized  from  home  to 
proceed  as  against  an  enemy,  even  to  the  point  of  laying  waste 
the  country  with  fire  and  sword.  If  he  was  to  do  so,  he-  must 
have  troops  and  equipments.  These  were  granted,  to  a  sufficient 
extent  to  overpower  the  independents  in  military  conflict.  By 
the  beginning  of  1817,  all  but  a  few  of  their  chiefs  laid  down 
their  arms,  accepted  'the  pardon  offered  by  government,  and  j>er- 
mitted  tiiat  the  fact  should  be  proclaimed  to  the  world,  that 
Mexico  was  in  an  orderly  state  as  a  colony  of  Spain.' 

It  wa<  owing  to  the  hardness  and  imperiou.^ni-ss  with  which 
Spain  demanded  absolute  submission  from  her  provinces,  even 
when  at  the  lowest  point  of  her  fortunes,  that  she  lost  some  of 


CHAP.  Vin.]      NEW  GRENADA. —  VENEZUELA.  H3 

them  which  were  truly  imwilling  to  be  severed  from  their 
European  connection,  and  had  to  part  with  others  sooner  than 
would  have  been  necessary.  The  revolution  in  New  Grenada 
became  very  complete  at  last ;  but  it  was  by  slow  New  Ore- 
degrees.  At  first,  it  was  a  mere  local  rising  —  at  nada- 
Quito  —  and  intended  to  procure  redress  of  the  grievances 
caused  by  the  old  colonial  government.  For  the  greater  part  of 
six  years,  it  was  conducted  and  sustained  chiefly  by  only  one  out 
of  three  divisions  composing  the  viceroyalty.  The  audiencias 
of  Panama  and  Quito  could  give  little  or  no  help ;  and  the  acts 
of  the  so-called  congress  of  New  Grenada  expressed  the  will  of 
Bogota  alone.  After  the  old  colonial  system,  the  liberal  party 
disowned  the  authority  of  the  juntas  in  Spain  —  then  the  regen- 
cies —  then  the  Cortes  —  then  the  sovereignty  of  Ferdinand  — 
and,  at  last,  the  connection  with  Spain  altogether.  Still,  Spain 
allowed  110  alternative  between  complete  independence  and  un- 
qualified submission  ;  and  the  people  of  New  Grenada  chose 
that  of  complete  independence.  They  appointed  an  executive 
government  composed  of  three  persons ;  and  the  three  were  well 
known  to  be  zealous  republicans.  The  appointment  took  place 
at  the  beginning  of  1<S1 5,  after  the  famous  Bolivar,  then  com- 
pelled to  retire  from  Venezuela,  had  given  the  benefit  of  his  gen- 
eralship to  New  Grenada,  and  had  been  proclaimed  captain- 
general  of  Venezuela  and  New  Grenada.  The  appointment  of 
Bolivar  was  opposed  by  the  city  of  Carthagena.  Bolivar  block- 
aded the  city,  and  spent  precious  time  before  it,  while  a  for- 
midable Spanish  force  was  approaching*  As  the  Spaniards  came 
on,  the  inhabitants  sank  deeper  into  faction ;  and  before  the  sum- 
mer of  1816.  the  rule  of  the  mother-country  was  nearly  rees- 
tablished. It  was  rendered  to  all  appearance  secure  by  the 
surrender  of  the  capital  to  the  Spanish  general  in  June  ;  and 
the  world  was  informed  that  New  Grenada  also  was  in  an 
orderly  state.  The  independents  were  not  converted,  however  ; 
only  dispersed.  They  had  no  power  in  the  cities,  and  no  army 
in  the  fields  ;  but  their  soldiery  swarmed  in  the  mountains,  un- 
der the  aspect  of  guerrilla  bands  ;  and  there  was  a  spirit  of  ex- 
pectation, awake  and  watchful,  abroad  over  the  whole  region, 
awaiting  the  hour  of  independence,  which  was  sure  to  arrive. 

The  two  otlier  great  divisions,  Venezuela  and  La  Plata,  were 
more  interesting  to  Great   Britain,  during  this  strug- 
gle, than   Mexico  and  New  Grenada.      She  had  vivid   SS^ 
recollections  of  her  late  adventures  to  Buenos  Ayres 
and  Monte  Video ;  and  not  only  was  Venezuela  the  country  of 
Miranda,  but  the  island  of  Curaooa,  very  near  the  coast,  and  the 
neighboring  district  of  British  Guiana,  gave    Kngland  an  imme- 
diate interest   in  the   condition  of  the   province.     It  was  from 

VOL.  n.  8 


114  HISTORY  OF   THE  PEACE.  [BOOK  I. 

Curajoa  that  Sir  James  Cockburn  crossed  to  Caraccas  to  propitiate 
the  people  in  favor  of  Ferdinand,  and  rouse  them  against  the 
French  in  1808  ;  when  his  entry  into  the  province  was  like  a 
royal  progress,  and  England  was  at  the  summit  of  popular  favor. 
It  was  to  the  next  governor  of  Cura9oa,  Brigadier-General  Led- 
yard,  that  Lord  Liverpool  addressed,  in  1810,  the  letter  before 
referred  to  as  explaining  the  policy  of  the  Perceval  administra- 
tion in  regard  to  South  America.  It  was  at  Curacoa  that 
Miranda  landed  towards  the  end  of  that  year.  It  had  been 
hoped  that  he  might  have  been  persuaded  to  stay  in  London.  He 
was  known  as  the  great  champion  of  independence,  and  the 
existing  popular  government  at  Caraccas  thought  it  too  soon  to 
talk  of  independence.  They  had  been  busily  engaged  in  im- 
proving the  state  of  the  province ;  they  had  abolished  the  capi- 
tation tax  upon  the  Indians,  made  the  slave-trade  illegal,  and 
removed  all  the  worst  imposts  which  affected  agriculture  and 
commerce.  Miranda  was  pretty  sure  to  precipitate  matters,  and 
prove  a  formidable  rival  in  the  good-will  of  the  people ;  so  he 
was  to  be  detained  in  London  as  long  as  possible.  He  was 
aware  of  all  this,  and  slipped  away  quietly ;  not  so  quietly,  how- 
ever, as  to  arrive  without  introductions.  He  brought  letters  to 
the  governor  of  Cura9oa  from  the  Duke  of  Cambridge  and  Mr. 
Vansittart.  It  was  an  English  vessel  which  carried  him  to  his 
own  shore.  Whether  it  was  this  close  connection  with  England 
—  whose  policy  now  was  to  preserve  the  colonies  to  the  mother- 
country  —  that  had  changed  Miranda's  views,  or  that  times  had 
changed,  and  not  he,  the  constitution  he  proposed  was  found, 
after  all,  not  to  be  liberal  enough  ;  and  he  lost  his  popularity. 
Still,  his  arrival  was  a  stimulus  to  decisive  action  ;  and  on  the 
llth  of  July,  1811,  the  Declaration  of  Independence  of  Vene- 
zuela was  published,  according  to  a  decree  of  the  congress  as- 
sembled at  Caraccas.  The  constitution  mainly  resembled  that 
of  the  United  States,  except  that  there  were  three  executive 
chiefs  instead  of  one,  and  that  the  Roman  Catholic  religion  was 
established  ;  provision  being  made  that  na  foreigners  should  be 
permitted  to  reside  in  the  country,  unless  they  respected  its 
established  faith. 

It  seems  to  have  occurred  to  few  or  none  of  the  parties  con- 
cerned in  these  South  American  revolutions,  to  inquire  whether 
the  people  were  fit  for  self-government,  or  competent  to  settle 
how  they  would  be  governed.  The  old  colonial  rule  was  inde- 
fensible on  every  ground,  and  intolerable  to  the  people.  But  it 
was  a  long  step  to  take  at  once  from  that  system  to  a  constitution 
like  that  of  the  United  States.  Here  were  mixed  races  and 
severed  factions,  burning  with  jealousy,  revenge,  ambition,  and 
every  other  evil  passion  ;  here  was  a  total  popular  ignorance  of 


CHAP.  VIII.]      DROUGHT  AND  EARTHQUAKES.  115 

the  very  meaning  of  law  and  government ;  here  were  habits  of 
disorder,  in  alternation  and  reaction  with  tryannical  coercion  ; 
and  here  was  an  exclusive  religion,  sunk  to  the  lowest  point  of 
superstition,  by  which  the  whole  mind  of  the  country  was  either 
subordinated  to  the  most  ignorant  of  priesthoods,  or  in  a  state  of 
conscious  impiety  in  the  act  of  resistance.  It  appears  strange 
that  any  enlightened  person  should  have  supposed  that  such  a 
constitution  as  that  of  the  United  States  could  work  well  in 
Venezuela,  on  the  instant  of  its  severance  from  Spain,  and  with 
a  Spanish  priesthood  spread  over  the  whole  province. 

In  July,  1811,  as  has  been  related,  the  constitution  was  pro- 
claimed. For  a  while  all  went  well.  The  army  was  steady, 
commerce  flourished,  the  people  were  contented.  Throughout 
the  autumn  everybody  was  in  spirits,  unless  it  were  that  the  ag- 
riculturists had  some  apprehensions  of  a  dry  season.  In  De- 
cember the  earth  began  to  trem!>le,  and  the  courage  of  the  peo- 
ple was  somewhat  shaken.  As  the  weeks  went  on,  not  a  drop 
of  rain  fell  within  more  than  300  miles  from  the  capital.  On 
Holy  Thursday,  the  26th  of  March,  1812,  almost  the  entire  pop- 
ulation was  to  be  in  the  churches  ;  and  if  no  rain  fell  before 
that  day,  the  whole  people  would  pray,  as  with  one  voice,  for 
rain.  The  sky  remained  cloudless,  and  on  the  great  day  the 
heat  was  excessive.  At  a  few  minutes  after  four,  when  the 
churches  were  crowded,  the  bells  clanged  of  their  own  accord ; 
the  pavement  heaved  under  the  people's  feet,  the  steeples  top- 
pled and  fell.  There  were  two  earthquakes  at  once  ;  that  is,  the 
movements  of  the  ground  crossed  each  other.  Nothing  could 
stand  this.  The  city  of  Caraccas  was  almost  entirely  overthrown, 
and  much  of  it  buried.  The  clear  moon  of  that  night,  which 
shone  brilliantly  when  the  dust  had  subsided,  lighted  up  as  dreary 
a  scene  as  the  earth  ever  presented.  No  food  was  to  be  had ; 
the  conduit-pipes  were  snapped  and  crushed,  and  the  springs 
choked  up,  and  not  a  drop  could  be  obtained  for  the  dying  who 
groaned  out  their  entreaties  for  water.  As  the  dead  could  not 
be  buried,  they  were  burned ;  and  the  yellow  fires  gleamed  for 
many  nights  in  the  moonlight.  The  guilty  confessed  their  sins 
aloud  in  the  public  ways  ;  the  licentious  hastened  to  marry  those 
whom  they  had  seduced,  and  to  acknowledge  their  illegitimate 
children ;  men  of  good  fame  avowed  former  frauds,  and  made 
restitution  ;  enemies  were  reconciled.  Such  were  the  spectacles 
seen  amidst  the  moral  monstrosities  which  are  always  witnessed 
in  such  crises  of  panic  and  suffering,  when  the  brutal  and  reck- 
less come  out  into  the  light.  The  priests  said  that  these  acts  of 
penitence  and  reparation  were  well,  as  far  as  they  went,  but  they 
were  not  enough.  The  earthquake  was  a  retributive  infliction 
for  the  general  sin  of  the  community  in  setting  up  a  constitution 


116  HISTORY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [BOOK  I. 

for  itself.  The  Holy  Thursday  procession  of  two  years  before 
had  been  the  occasion  of  the  first  talk  of  the  new  constitution ; 
and  here,  on  the  same  high  festival,  was  the  sign  of  the  displeas- 
ure of  Heaven.  Aided  by  other  influences,  the  event,  and  this 
preaching  on  it,  availed  to  overthrow  the  new  liberties  of  Vene- 
zuela. The  Spanish  troops  pushed  the  advantage  given  by  the 
panic  of  the  people.  Whole  bodies  of  the  patriot  army  went 
over  to  them.  Bolivar  failed  to  hold  a  fortress  against  them  ; 
and  in  July  Miranda  agreed  to  a  treaty  which  introduced  the 
new  Spanish  constitution,  in  the  place  of  that  of  Venezuela. 
This  was  the  end  of  Miranda's  career.  The  old  patriot  was 
seized  in  his  bed  by  a  party  of  political  foes,  of  whom  Bolivar 
was  one,  and  put  in  irons,  with  the  knowledge  of  the  Spanish 
general,  who  took  no  pains  to  help  him.  After  some  months' 
imprisonment  in  irons,  he  was  sent  to  Spain,  where  he  died  in 
close  captivity  in  1816. 

It  is  plain  that  there  was  no  political  enlightenment  in  Vene- 
zuela which  could  secure  any  stability.  The  country  changed 
hands  more  than  once,  and  was  cruelly  ravaged  by  each  party  in 
turn.  Bolivar,  as  dictator,  was  dreadfully  vindictive ;  and  when 
he  and  his  party  were  driven  out  of  the  country,  and  the  patri- 
ots completely  humbled,  by  the  end  of  1814,  the  Spanish  rule 
was  a  mere  system  of  barbarian  pillage  and  oppression.  During 
1815  the  patriots  vere  quiet.  In  1816.  Bolivar  and  some  com- 
rades, driven  out  of  New  Grenada,  were  joined  by  volunteers 
from  Great  Britain  and  other  European  countries,  and  made  an 
attempt  at  invasion,  which  was  unsuccessful  at  the  time.  The 
struggle  which  proved  successful  at  last,  was  begun,  with  similar 
assistance,  in  January,  1817.  The  conflict  was  maintained  till 
1823,  when  the  last  of  the  Spanish  troops  left  the  country.  In 
1819,  Bolivar  had  freed  New  Grenada;  and  the  two  states  were 
now  united  for  a  few  years,  till  the  inconvenience  of  their  junc- 
tion was  found  to  outweigh  its  advantages.  This  is  looking  for- 
ward a  little.  In  1816,  when,  as  we  have  seen,  Mexico  and  New 
Grenada  were,  humbled  under  the  foot  of  the  restored  Ferdinand, 
Venezuela  was  in  no  better  condition. 

We  must  now  see  how  matters  stood  in  La  Plata. 

When  the  news  arrived  there  of  the  French  invasion  of  Spain, 
the  viceroy  of  Rio  de  la  Plata  was  the  General  Linieres  to 
whom  Whitelocke  had  submitted  the  year  before.  Linieres 
was  a  Frenchman,  and  in  the  interest  of  Napoleon  ;  but  he  was 
soon  superseded  by  a  governor  in  the  Spanish  interest.  He  was 
afterwards  executed,  having  been  takqn  in  arms  against  the  pa- 
triot cause,  which  was,  for  a  time,  uppermost  in  1810.  After 
some  vicissitudes,  the  Spanish  Hag  was  abolished  in  1813,  and 
coins  were,  for  the  first  time,  struck  with  the  republican  arms. 


CHAP.  VIII.]      PARAGUAY.  — CHILI. —BRAZIL.  H7 

Then  followed  a  succession  of  Directors,  whose  presidency  would, 
it  wn<  hoped,  still  '-the  vibration  of  the  passions."  Their  short 
terms  of  office  seem  to  show,  however,  that  the  passions  were 
still  vibrating  very  strongly.  In  March,  1816,  the  state  of  Rio 
de  la  Plata  proclaimed,  by  the  mouth  of  its  congress,  its  decla- 
ration of  independence.  General  Pueyrredon  was  made  the  su- 
preme Director.  Here  is  one  great  state  which  was  not  under 
the  foot  of  the  restored  Ferdinand  in  1816. 

The    province    of  Paraguay  managed   matters  very   quietly. 
The  people  drove  out  the  Spanish  force  sent  against 
them  when  all  La  Plata  was  in  commotion.     In  1811, 
they  deposed  the   Spanish  government,  and  set  up  a  junta,  with 
Dr.   Francia  as  secretary.     In  1813,  he  was  called  Consul ;  and 
in  1814,  Dictator  of  Paraguay  ;  and  so  he  remained  till  his  death 
in  1840  —  keeping  his  state  independent    at   once    of   Buenos 
Ayres  and  of  Spain,  but   under   an   excessive    despotism  from 
himself. 

Chili  accompanied  the  fortunes  of  La  Plata.     The  Spanish 
authorities   were   early   deposed ;  but   the   usual   in- 

Chili 

trigues  and  factions  among  the  patriots  followed,  and 
gave  occasion  for  the  Spanish  forces,  who  were  strong  in  Upper 
Peru,  to  come  down,  and  attempt  to  regain  the  province.  The 
Carreras  were  then  at  the  head  of  the  provincial  affairs ;  and 
next,  the  well-known  O'Higgins  was  made  commander-in-chief. 
He  so  far  reduced  the  Spaniards  that  a  treaty,  advantageous  to 
Chili,  was  prepared  under  the  mediation  of  a  British  officer  then 
on  the  spot — Captain  Hillyar.  But  the  viceroy  of  Peru  drew 
back  from  his  promise  to  ratify  the  treaty ;  and  war  began  again. 
The  Spaniards  conquered,  and  remained  supreme  in  Chili  from 
1814  to  1816.  La  Plata  could  not  acquiesce  in  this  subjugation 
of  the  bordering  province,  though  the  mighty  Andes  rose  be- 
tween. General  San  Martin,  who  had  been  laid  aside  by  sick- 
ness, recovered  his  health  and  energy,  and  made  a  wonderful 
passage  of  the  mountain-chain  in  the  month  of  January,  1817. 
His  little  army  crossed  five  ridges,  terrible  with  ice  and  snow, 
besides  many  smaller  ones  —  mules  and  horses,  and  even  men, 
dropping  dead  in  the  cold.  At  the  end  of  a  fortnight,  he  was 
in  fighting  order  on  the  other  side.  On  the  12th  of  February, 
he  gained  a  victory  which  secured  the  freedom  of  Chili. 

In  1816,  therefore,  the  Spanish  rule  was  subsisting  in  Mexico, 
New  Grenada,  Venezuela,  and  Peru  —  all  northern  provinces. 
The  great  empire  of  Brazil  was  rising  in  its  fortunes, 
under  the  advantages  of  the  royal  residence  —  of  its 
being  made,  in  fact,  the  Portuguese  empire  from  1807.     It  had 
put  out  a  hand  to  keep  quiet  the  1'ttle  province  of  Uruguay,  at  its 
southern  extremity.     The  provinces  which  had  declared  their  in- 


118  HISTORY   OF  THE  PEACE.  [BOOK  I. 

dependence,  and  which  were  concluded  to  have  republican  ten- 
dencies and  intentions,  were  La  Plata  and  Chili.  All  the  world 
knew  that  this  was  no  permanent  settlement.  The  northern 
provinces  would  not  remain  tranquil  under  the  old  colonial  rule ; 
and  it  was  not  probable  that  Spain  would  acquiesce  in  the  inde- 
pendence, of  the  southern  states.  It  was  a  matter,  not  only  of 
curiosity  and  interest  what  would  happen  next,  but  of  serious  po- 
litical importance  to  the  governments  of  Europe.  Some  of  them, 
and  Great  Britain  for  one,  must  take  some  part  in  promoting  or 
opposing  the  independence  of  the  Spanish  colonies  of  South 
America ;  and  no  British  statesman  was  likely  to  forget  that 
assurance  of  Mr  Pitt,  in  1790,  which  was  always  in  Canning's 
mind  —  that  the  scheme  of  emancipating  South  America  was 
one  which  would  not  be  lost  sight  of,  but  would  infallibly  engage 
the  attention  of  every  minister  of  our  country. 


CHAP.  IX.]    OUTRAGE   ON  THE  PRINCE  REGENT.  1]9 


CHAPTER    IX. 

ON  the  28th  of  January,  the  Prince  Regent  opened  the  fifth 
session  of  the  existing  parliament.  The  speech  from 
the  throne  contained  the  following  passage  :  "  In  con-  parUamlut. 
sidering  our  internal  situation  you  will,  I  doubt  not, 
feel  a  just  indignation  at  the  attempts  which  have  been  made  to 
take  advantage  of  the  distresses  of  the  country,  for  the  purpose 
of  exciting  a  spirit  of  sedition  and  violence.  I  am  too  well  con- 
vinced of  the  loyalty  and  good  sense  of  the  great  body  of  His 
Majesty's  subjects,  to  believe  them  capable  of  being  perverted  by 
the  arts  which  are  employed  to  seduce  them ;  but  I  am  deter- 
mined to  omit  no  precautions  for  preserving  the  public  peace,  and 
for  counteracting  the  designs  of  the  disaffected."  It  would  have 
been  difficult  to  infer  from  this  language  that  the  government 
believed  that  a  formidable  and  widely  organized  insurrection  was 
threatening  the  country,  and  that  the  only  remedy  was  a  viola- 
tion of  the  constitutional  safeguards  of  the  liberties  of  the  peo- 
ple. Attempts  to  excite  a  spirit  of  sedition,  amongst  a  people  in- 
capable "  of  being  perverted  by  the  arts  employed  to  seduce 
them,"  were  subjects  for  vigilance  towards  the  few,  without  in- 
fringement of  the  rights  of  the  many.  The  seconder  of  the  ad- 
dress in  the  Commons  asserted  1  that  the  demagogues  and  their 
acts  would  die  of  themselves.  The  debate  in  the  Lower  House 
was  suddenly  interrupted  by  a  message  from  the  Lords.  An 
outrage  had  been  offered  to  the  Prince  Regent  on  his  Outrage 
return  from  opening  the  parliament.  The  windows  of  p^e  the 
the  state-carriage  had  been  broken  by  some  missile.  Regent. 
The  two  Houses,  after  agreeing  upon  an  address  to  the  Prince 
Regent  on  this  event,  adjourned.  Upon  the  resumption  of  the 
dabate  the  next  day  in  the  Commons,  and  upon  its  commence- 
ment in  the  Lords,  the  insult  to  the  representative  of  the  sover- 
eign, which  was  at  first  asserted  to  be  an  attempt  upon  his  life, 
gave  a  decided  tone  to  the  proceedings  of  both  Houses.  In 
both  assemblies  the  opposition  loudly  proclaimed  the  necessity  of 
a  rigid  and  unsparing  economy ;  and  the  proposed  amendment 
upon  the  address  went  directly  to  pledge  the  most  severe  reduc- 
1  Hansard,  xxxv.  p.  13. 


120  HISTORY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [BOOK  L 

• 

tion  of  every  possible  expense.  The  practical  answer  to  these 
abortive  proposals  was  the  intimation  of  Lord  Sidmouth,  that  in 
three  days  he  should  present  a  message  from  the  Prince  Regent 
on  the  subject  of  the  alleged  disaffection  of  large  bodies  of  the 
people.  Alarm,  that  became  the  great  instrument  of 
governing  till  the  close  of  the  reign  of  George  1 1 1., 
had  its  full  capabilities  revealed  in  what  Lord  Dudley  described 
a~  "  the  pop-gun  plot."  Addressing  the  Bishop  of  Llandaff  on 
the  1st  of  February,  1817,  this  able  and  temperate  observer 
says :  *  "  Pray  tell  me  what  you  think  of  the  state  of  public 
opinion  and  feeling  at  this  moment.  Is  there  a  dangerous  spirit 
abroad,  or  is  there  not?  Canning  says  there  is.  But  an  elo- 
quent minuter  is  a  bad  authority  upon  such  a  subject.  An 
alarm  is  the  harvest  of  such  a  personage."  With  a  real  admira- 
tion of  many  points  in  the  character  of  this  u  personage,"  we 
cannot  but  regard  the  period  in  which  he  was  a  mere  "leaner  in 
the  harvest  of  alarm  as  the  least  creditable  portion  of  his  life.  He 
had  been  excluded  from  power  for  three  years.  He  returned 
to  jealous  colleagues  and  to  bitter  rivals.  He  could  not  ex- 
ist out  of  the  circle  of  party.  Rather  than  not  win  the  equiv- 
ocal honors  of  a  partisan,  he  was  content  to  be  a  tooL  When 
Canning,  on  the  second  night  of  the  debate  on  the  address, 
denied  that  the  existing  state  of  the  representation  was  a  griev- 
ance ;  when  he  said :  *  "  I  deny  the  assumption  that  the  House 
of  Commons,  as  it  stands,  is  not,  to  all  practical  purposes,  an  ad- 
equate representation  of  the  people ;  I  deny  that  it  requires  any 
amendment  or  alteration;"  he  spoke,  we  have  no  doubt,  his 
honest  convictions.  But  when  he  attempted,  as  he  did  in  the 
same  speech,  to  confound  the  most  moderate  projects  of  reform 
with  the  doctrines  of  universal  suffrage  and  annual  parliaments, 
and  mixed  up  the  whole  body  of  propounders  of  these  doctrines 
with  the  mad  fanatics  called  Spenceans,3  we  lament  to  see  a  great 
mind  prostituting  its  talents  to  such  dishonest  advocacy.  He 
was  thrust  forward  to  play  a  part,  and  he  so  played  it  that  he 
brought  down  his  fine  genius  to  the  level  of  those  under  whom 
he  served.  But  the  policy  was  successful.  It  was  in  prepara- 
tion for  the  message  of  the  3d  of  February,  that  the  Prince  Ru- 
gent  had  given  orders  that  there  be  laid  before  the  Houses,  u  pa- 
yers containing  information  respecting  certain  practices,  meetings 
and  combinations  in  the  metropolis,  and  in  different  parts  of  the 
kingdom,  evidently  cal.-ulated  to  endanger  the  public  tranqm'lity, 
to  alienate  the  affections  of  His  Majesty's  subjects  from  His  Maj- 
esty's person  and  government,  and  to  bring  into  hatred  and  con- 
tempt the  whole  system  of  our  laws  an<l  institutions.''  In  mov- 
ing the  order  of  the  day  for  the  consideration  of  this  message, 
1  Letters,  p.  159.  2  Hansard,  xxv.  p.  130.  *  Sec  ante,  p.  67- 


CHAP.  IX.]  REPOKTS  OF  SECRET  COMMITTEES.      121 

Lord  Sidmouth,  in  the  House  of  Lords,  affirmed  that  the  commu- 
nication was  in  no  degree  founded  on,  or  connected  with,  the 
outrage  upon  the  Prince  Regent  on  the  first  day  of  the  session. 
And  yet  the  House  of  Lords  saw  the  attack  upon  the  Prince 
Regent  as  l  "  an  additional  and  melancholy  proof  of  the  efficacy 
of  this  system  [the  system  complained  of  in  the  message]  to 
destroy  all  reverence  for  authority."  It  is  difficult  to  imagine 
tha  so  serious  a  charge  against  a  large  portion  of  the  people,  as 
that  made  in  the  message  of  the  3d  of  February,  should  have 
been  so  lightly  passed  over  in  the  royal  speech  of  the  28th  of 
January,  had  not  some  new  circumstances  arisen  to  warrant  the 
course  which  the  government  was  now  taking.  Was  it  that  the 
fears  of  the  illustrious  personage  who  had  heard  the  upbraid- 
ing groans  of  the  multitude,  and  had  sustained  a  rude  insult 
from  some  reckless  hand,  had  urged  his  ministers  upon  the 
career  which  they  were  now  entering,  of  exaggerating  discon- 
tents, of  tempting  distress  into  sedition,  of  sowing  suspicion  of 
the  poor  in  the  minds  of  the  rich,  of  confounding  the  reformer 
and  the  anarchist  in  one  general  hatred  ?  Oae  of  the  keenest 
of  political  reasoners  2  speaks  of  sovereigns,  who,  "  neglecting  all 
virtuous  actions,  began  to  believe  that  princes  were  exalted  for 
no  other  end  but  to  discriminate  themselves  from  their  subjects 
by  their  pomp,  luxury,  and  all  other  effeminate  qualities ;  by 
whi.-h  means  they  fell  into  the  hatred  of  the  people,  and  by  con- 
sequence became  afraid  of  them,  and  that  f-ar  increasing,  they 
began  to  meditate  revenge."  Up  to  a  certain  point,  we  are  con- 
strained to  believe  that  this  temper  was  something  akin  to  that  of 
the  Regent  in  those  unhappy  days.  It  is  well  that  the  genius  of 
our  constitution  rendered  this  temper  comparatively  powerless. 

The  message  of  the  Piince  Regent  of  the  3d  of  February  was 
referred  to  a  secret  committee  in  each  House,  and  these   ^  ortg  f 
committees  made  their  reports  on  the   18th  and  19th   secret  com- 
of  the  same  month.     We  have  already  noticed  8  that   mittees- 
portion  of  the  report  of  the  Lords  which  describes  '•  the  traitorous 
conspiracy,"  which  was  developed  in  the  riot  at  Spa-fields.     O  ie 
third  of  the  report  is  devoted  to  a  narrative  of  this  riot,  and  the 
designs  of  its  miserable  abettors,  in  terms  of  the  most  fearful  so- 
le mn  ty.     Not  Cicero  s  denunciations  of  Catiline  are  more  horror- 
stirring.     The  report  then  proceeds  to  detail  the  general  state  of 
t'ue  country.     "  It  appears  dearly  that  the  object  is,  by  means  of 
societies  or  clubs,  established,  or  to  be  established,  in  all  parts 
of  Great   Britain,  under  pretence  of  parliamentary  reform,  to  in- 
fect the  minds  of  all  classes  of  the  community,  and  particularly  of 
those  whose  situation    most  exposes  them  to  such   impressions, 

1  Report  of  Secret  Committee. 

3  Machiavelli,  Discourses  on  Livy,  chap.  ii.  8  See  ante,  p.  71. 


122  HISTORY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [BOOK  I. 

with  a  spirit  of  discontent  and  disaffection,  of  insubordination, 
and  contempt  of  all  law,  religion,  and  morality,  and  to  hold  out 
to  them  the  plunder  of  all  property  as  the  main  object  of  their 
efforts,  and  the  restoration  of  their  natural  rights  ;  and  no  en- 
deavors are  omitted  to  prepare  them  to  take  up  arms  on  the 
first  signal  for  accomplishing  their  designs.  ....  The  country 
societies  are  principally  to  be  found  in.  and  in  the  neighborhood 
of,  Leicester,  Loughborough,  Nottingham,  Mansfield,  Derby 
Chesterfield,  Sheffield,  Blackburn,  Manchester,  Birmingham,  and 
Norwich,  and  in  Glasgow  and  its  vicinity ;  but  they  extend  and 
are  spreading  in  some  parts  of  the  country  to  almost  every  vil- 
lage." The  report  finally  calls  for  "  further  provisions  for  the  pres- 
ervation of  the  public  peace,  and  for  the  protection  of  inter' 
which  the  happiness  of  every  class  of  the  community  is  deeply 
and  equally  involved."  The  report  of  the  House  of  Commons 
begins  with  the  Spencean  societies,  and  goes  on  to  describe,  at 
greater  length  than  that  of  the  Lords,  the  Spa-fields  conspiracy. 
The  Hampden  Clubs  are  most  emphatically  denounced  as  aiming 
at  "  nothing  short  of  a  revolution."  The  report  of  the  Commons 
thus  concludes :  '•  Your  committee  cannot  contemplate  the  ac- 
tivity and  arts  of  the  leaders  in  this  conspiracy,  and  the  numbers 
whom  they  have  already  seduced  and  may  seduce ;  the  oaths  by 
which  many  of  them  are  bound  together ;  the  means  suggested 
and  prepared  for  the  forcible  attainment  of  their  objects  ;  the 
nature  of  the  objects  themselves,  which  are  not  only  the  over- 
throw of  all  the  political  institutions  of  the  kingdom,  but  also 
such  a  subversion  of  the  rights  and  principles  of  property  as 
must  necessarily  lead  to  general  confusion,  plunder,  and  blood- 
shed ;  without  submitting  to  the  most  serious  attention  of  the 
House,  the  dangers  which  exist,  and  which  the  utmost  vigilance 
of  government,  under  the  existing  laws,  has  been  found  inade- 
quate to  prevent."  Looking  at  these  reports  in  connection  with 
the  facts  which  were  subsequently  brought  to  light,  under  the 
most  solemn  judicial  investigations  conducted  in  the  spirit  of 
the  constitution,  and  under  the  extra-judicial  powers  which  were 
granted  for  the  detection  and  punishment  of  guilt,  we  must  either 
come  to  the  conclusion  that  the  committees  were  the  dupes  of 
blind  or  wicked  informers,  or  were  unable  to  arrive  at  a  sound 
judgment  upon  the  facts  presented  to  them,  or  were  not  unwilling 
to  spread  a  panic  which  would  leave  parliament  for  an  indefinite 
time  to  its  ordinary  struggles  for  the  interests  of  particular  classes 
to  the  comparative  neglect  of  the  welfare  of  the  great  body  of 
the  people.  But,  under  the  influence  of  these  reports,  it  would 
have  been  impossible  to  have  made  such  a  resistance  to  the  gov- 
ernment as  would  have  prevented  the  enactment  of  stringent 
measures,  one  of  which  was  decidedly  unconstitutional.  Bills 


CHAP.  IX.]        MARCH  OF  THE  BLANKETEERS.  123 

were  brought  in  and  passed  by  large  majorities,  to  guard  against 
and  avert  the  dangers  which  had  been  so  alarmingly  proclaimed. 
The  first  of  these  renewed  the  act  for  the  prevention  and  punish- 
ment of  attempts  to  seduce  soldiers  and  sailors  from  their  alle- 
giance ;  the  second  extended  to  the  Prince  Regent  all  the  safe- 
guards against  treasonable  attempts  which  secure  the  actual  sover- 
eign ;  the  third  was  for  the  prevention  of  seditious  meetings.  The 
last  of  the  four  was  the  most  dangerous  and  the  least  called  for. 
It  gave  to  the  executive  power  the  fearful  right  of  imprisonment 
without  trial.  In  common  parlance,  the  Habeas  Corpus  Act 
was  suspended,  under  "  An  Act  to  empower  His  Majesty  to  se- 
cure and  detain  such  persons  as  His  Majesty  shall  suspect  are 
conspiring  against  his  person  and  government."  The  suspension 
was,  however,  in  this  instance,  limited  to  the  ensuing  1st  of  July. 
The  Habeas  Corpus  Suspension  Act  was  passed  on  the  3d  of 
March  ;  the  bill  for  restraining  "seditious  meetings  did  March  of 
not  become  law  till  the  29th  of  March.  Within  a  the  Blanket- 
week  after  the  passing  of  the  act  for  imprisonment  eers> 
without  trial,  and  before  the  magistrates  had  received  any  acces- 
sion to  their  power  as  to  the  dispersion  of  tumultuous  assemblies, 
an  occurrence  took  place  at  Manchester,  which  was  at  once  evi- 
dence of  the  agitated  condition  of  distressed  multitudes  in  the 
manufacturing  districts,  and  of  the  extreme  weakness  of  their 
purposes.  This  was  the  famous  march  of  the  Blanketeers.  And 
yet,  when  the  renewed  suspension  of  the  Habeas  Corpus  Act 
was  proposed  in  June,  the  report  of  the  secret  committee  entered 
into  minute  detail  of  this  senseless  project,  as  one  of  the  argu- 
ments for  tampering  again  with  the  liberties  of  the  whole  king- 
dom. A  plain  and  honest  account  of  this  affair  is  given  by  Sam- 
uel Bamford.  According  to  his  narrative,  William  Benbow,  the 
shoemaker,  had  taken  a  great  share  in  getting  up  and  arranging 
a  vast  meeting,  subsequently  called  the  Blanket  Meeting,  for  the 
purpose  of  marching  to  London  to  petition  the  Prince  Regent  in 
person.  Bamford  himself  wholly  condemned  the  measure.  He 
deprecated  the  blind  zeal  of  those  who  had  proposed  it ;  he  be- 
lieved they  were  instigated  by  those  who  would  betray  them.  Up 
to  this  time  the  maxim  of  the  reformers  had  been,  "  Hold  fast 
by  tlie  laws."  New  doctrines  now  began  to  be  broached,  which, 
if  not  in  direct  violation  of  the  law,  were  ill-disguised  subter- 
fuges for  its  evasion.  The  Blanket  Meeting,  however,  took  place 
in  St.  Peter's  Field  at  Manchester.  It  consisted,  according  to 
Bamford,  of  four  or  five  thousand  operatives  —  according  to  the 
second  report  of  the  Lords'  secret  committee,  of  ten  or  twelve 
thousand.  "  Many  of  the  individuals,"  says  Bamford,  *  "  were 
observed  to  have  blankets,  rugs,  or  large  coats,  rolled  up  and  tied 
1  Bamford's  Life  of  a  Radical,  i.  p.  32. 


124  HISTORY  OF   THE   PEACE.  [BOOK  I. 

knapsack-like  on  their  backs  ;  some  carried  bundles  under  their 
arms  ;  some  had  papers,  supposed  to  be  petitions,  roiled  up  ;  and 
some  had  stout  walking-sticks."  The  magistrates  came  upon  the 
field  and  read  the  riot  act ;  the  meeting  was  dispersed  by  the 
military  and  constables  ;  three  hundred  commenced  a  straggling 
march,  followed  by  a  body  of  yeomanry,  and  a  hundred  and 
eighty  reached  Macclesfield  at  nine  o'clock  at  night.  Some  were 
apprehended,  some  lay  in  (he  fields.  The  next  morning  the 
numbers  had  almost  melted  away;  "about  a  score  arrive  I  at 
Leek,  and  six  only  were  known  to  pass  Ashbourne  Bridge." 
More  terrible  events,  however,  were  in  preparation.  According 
to  the  second  report  of  the  Lords'  secret  committee,  "It  was  on 
the  nigiit  of  the  30th  of  Maivh  that  a  general  insurreciion  was 
intended  to  have  commenced  at  .Manchester.  The  magistrates 
were  to  be  seized  ;  the  prisoners  were  to  be  liberated ;  the  sol- 
diers were  either  to  be  surprised  in  their  barracks,  or  a  certain 
number  of  factories  were  to  be  set  on  fire,  for  the  purpose  of 
drawing  the  soldiers  out  of  their  barracks,  of  which  a  party  sta- 
tioned near  them  for  that  object  were  then  to  take  possession, 

with    a    view  of  seizing    the    magazine This    atrocious 

conspiracy  was  detected  by  the  vigilance  of  the  magistrates,  and 
defeated  by  the  apprehension  and  confinement  of  some  of  the 
ringleaders  a  few  days  before  the  period  fixed  for  its  execution." 
Bamford  records,  that  on  tiie  day  after  the  Blanket  Meeting,  "  a 
man  dressed  much  like  a  dyer "  came  to  him  at  Middleton,  '•  to 
propose  that  in  consequence  of  the  treatment  which  the  Blanket- 
eers  had  received  at  the  meeting  and  afterwards,  '  a  Moscow  of 
Manchester '  should  take  place  that  very  night."  Bamford  and 
his  friends  dismissed  him  with  the  assurance  that  he  was  the 
dupe  of  some  designing  villain.  The  scheme  which  this  dupe  or 
scoundrel  propounded  was  exactly  that  described  in  the  Lords' 
report.  But  there  were  men  who  did  not  receive  this  proposal 
with  disgust  and  suspicion,  as  those  of  Middleton  did.  The 
avowed  reform-leaders  —  delegates  and  Hampden-Club  men  — 
were  under  perpetual  terror.  Some  wandered  from  their  homes 
in  dread  of  imprisonment;  others  were  seized  in  the  bosom  of 
their  families.  Public  meetings  were  at  an  end.  The  fears  and 
passions  of  large  bodies  of  men  had  no  safety-valve.  "  Open 
meetings  thus  being  suspended,  secret  ones  ensued ;  they  were 
originated  at  Manchester,  and  assembled  under  various  pretexts. 
....  Their  real  purpose,  divulged  only  to  the  initiated,  was  to 
carry  into  effect  the  night  attack  on  Manchester,  the  attempt  at 
which  had  before  failed  for  want  of  arrangement  and  coopera- 
tion." A  little  while  after  this  "  Moscow  "  p  oposal,  a  co  delegate 
came  to  Bamford,  to  propose  the  assassination  of  all  the  ministers. 
We  know  that  this  scheme  smouldered  for  several  years.  "  The 


CHAP.  IX.]  THE  DERBY  INSURRECTION.  125 

fact  was,"  says  Bamford,1  "  this  unfortunate  person,  in  the  confi- 
dence of  an  unsuspecting  mind,  as  I  believe,  had,  during  one  of 
his  visits  to  London,  formed  a  connection  with  Oliver,  the  spy — • 
which  connection,  during  several  succeeding  monlhs,  gave  anew 
impulse  to  secret  meetings  and  plots  in  various  parts  of  Lanca- 
shire, Yorkshire,  and  Derbyshire ;  and  ended  in  the  tragedy  of 
Brandreth,  Ludlow,  and  Turner,  at  Derby."  The  course  of  this 
tragedy  we  have  now  to  recount.  It  is  the  only  one  of  the  insur- 
rectionary movements  of  the  manufacturing  districts,  in  1817,  that 
has  left  any  traces  of  judicial  investigation,  with  the  exception  of 
proceedings  at  York,  at  which  all  the  state-prisoners  were  dis- 
charged by  the  grand  jury,  or  acquitted  upon  trial.  All  the  per- 
sons connected  with  the  Blanket  expedition,  and  the  expected 
risings  at  Manchester,  were  discharged  before  trial. 

The  midland  counties  of  Nottingham,  Leicester,  and  Derby, 
had  been  in  a  disturbed  state  for  several  years.  The  Derby  insur- 
habit  of  daring  outrage  was  familar  to  large  numbers  ration. 
of  the  manufacturing  population.  We  have  already  exhibited.2 
that  course  of  ignorant  and  brutal  violence  known  as  Luddism. 
On  the  23d  of  June,  1817,  Mr.  Ponsonby  described  this  system,8 
as  one  that  had  not  originated  in  political  principles ;  but  he 
expressed  his  belief  that  those  who  had  been  trained  to  mischief 
by  its  laws  had  mixed  themselves  with  tho-e  who  had  political 
objects  in  view,  and  that  from  them  had  proceeded  some  of  the 
most  atrocious  suggestions  for  the  disturbance  of  the  public  peace. 
At  the  Leicester  assizes  on  the  1st  of  April,  eight  men  were 
tried  and  convicted  of  the  most  daring  outrages  at  Lough  borough, 
and  six  of  these  offenders  were  executed  on  the  17th  of  the 
same  month.  There  was  not  the  slightest  attempt  at  this  trial 
to  connect  the  crimes  of  these  men  with  any  political  opinions. 
But  amongst  a  population  that  for  four  years  had  witnessed  the 
night  attacks  of  armed  men  upon  machinery,  and  with  whom 
some  of  the  leaders  of  such  organized  attacks  were  in  habitual 
intercourse,  it  is  manifest  that  the  materials  for  political  insur- 
rection were  abundantly  accumulated.  It  was  not  the  part  of  a 
wise  and  humane  government  to  permit  the  feeblest  spark  of 
excitement  from  without  to  approach  these  inflammable  materials. 
We  do  not  think  that  the  facts  which  time  has  revealed  warrant 
us  in  going  so  far  as  Sir  Samuel  Romilly,  who  in  his  place  in 
pailiament  declared,  on  the  27th  of  January,  1818,  that  in  his 
conscience  he  believed  the  whole  of  the  Derbyshire  insurrection 
was  the  work  of  the  persons  sent  by  government ;  but  we  do 
think  that  these  facts  justify  a  strong  conviction  that  without  the 
agency  of  these  persons  the  insurrection  would  not  have  taken 
place.  On  the  motion  for  the  first  reading  of  the  bill  for  con- 

1  Bamford,  i.  p.  77.  2  gee  ante,  p.  54.          *  Hansard,  xxxvi.  p.  1114. 


126  HISTORY    OF  THE  PEACE.  [BOOK  L 

tinuing  the  suspension  of  the  Habeas  Corpus,  on  the  23d  of  June, 
Mr.  Ponsonby,  who  had  been  a  member  of  the  secret  committee, 
but  had  dissented  from  the  majority  as  to  the  necessity  of  the 
further  suspension,  stated  to  the  House  *  "  some  of  the  information 
gained  from  the  papers  and  evidence  presented  to  the  committee." 
In  March,  a  person  calling  himself  a  delegate  came  to  London 
from  one  of  the  midland  districts,  and  was  introduced  to  one  of 
similar  opinions.  He  of  similar  opinions  gave  discouraging 
information  as  to  the  state  of  public  feeling  in  the  capital.  The 
representations  of  the  delegate  as  to  the  impatience  of  the  coun- 
try districts  "  to  throw  off  the  yoke,"  as  he  termed  it,  were  not 
responded  to.  But  he  met  two  other  persons  ready  to  return 
with  him  as  delegates  from  London ;  and  Mr.  Oliver  proposed  to 
go  along  with  them,  making  a  fourth  delegate.  Before  they 
proceeded  on  their  journey,  Oliver  was  in  communication  with 
the  Home  Office  ;  but  received  no  instructions  to  compromise  the 
safety  of  any  one  by  tempting  them  into  practices  which  he  after- 
wards exposed.  The  co-delegates  relied  fully  on  Oliver  —  the 
country  delegate  introduced  him  to  all  his  friends  as  a  second 
self.  Oliver  remained  among  these  people  from  the  17th  of 
April  to  the  27th  of  May,  everywhere  received  as  the  London 
delegate.  He  was  examined  before  the  secret  committee,  and 
told  them  he  was  very  shy  of  giving  information ;  what  he  said 
was,  that  "  London  was  ready  to  rise,  and  only  wished  to  know 
what  assistance  could  be  derived  from  the  country  ;  and  that  the 
people  of  London  would  not  stir  first,  but  would  be  ready  to 
second  any  movement  from  the  country.  His  friend,  the  country 
delegate,  gave  effect  to  this  information,  by  telling  his  brethren, 
the  country  delegates,  that  75,000  individuals  could  be  relied  on 
in  the  eastern  parts  of  the  capital,  and  75,000  in  the  western. 
Mr.  Ponsonby  thus  showed,  with  a  moderation  and  candor  most 
advantageously  contrasted  with  the  frenzied  declamations  against 
individual  members  of  the  government,  made  by  such  popularity- 
hunters  .as  Sir  Francis  Burdett  and  Mr.  Grey  Bennett,  that  the 
representations  of  Oliver  himself,  and  the  representations  which 
he  permitted  to  be  made  with  his  knowledge  and  approval,  did 
excite  the  wretched  individuals,  with  whom  the  spy-delegate 
and  the  dupe-delegate  conversed,  to  acts  of  rebellion  or  insubor- 
dination. But  Mr.  Ponsonby  only  traced  Oliver  to  the  ^7th  of 
May.  We  are  now  enabled  to  follow  his  course  up  to  the  mo- 
ment of  the  Derbyshire  insurrection.  On  the  (5th  of  June  an 
outbreak  in  Yorkshire  was  expected,  and  ten  delegates  were 
arrested  at  Thornhill-lees,  near  Dewsbury.  On  the  day  of  the 
meeting,  Oliver  called  on  Mr.  Willans,  a  bookseller  of  Dewsbury, 
and  urged  him  to  attend  the  meeting  of  delegates  at  Thoruhill- 
1  Hansard,  xxxvi.  p.  1116. 


CHAP.  IX.]  OLIVER  THE   SPY.  127 

lees.  He  had  two  months  before  addressed  Willans  in  the  most 
traitorous  language.  Willans,  having  some  suspicion  of  the  in- 
cendiary, refused  to  go.  Oliver  himself  attended  the  meeting, 
and  was  arrested  with  the  others  ;  but  in  the  evening  he  was  at 
large  in  Wakefield,  and,  entering  the  coach  to  go  to  Leeds,  was 
accosted  by  a  livery  servant  of  Sir  John  Byng,  who  commanded 
the  forces  in  the  disturbed  districts.  This  servant,  after  Oliver 
was  gone,  said  that  a  few  days  before  he  had  driven  him  in  a  gig 
from  his  master's  house  to  meet  a  coach.  These  circumstances 
were  discovered  by  the  activity  of  Mr.  Baines,  of  Leeds,  who 
published  them  in  his  influential  newspaper ;  and  they  formed 
the  subject  of  a  violent  debate  in  the  House  of  Commons  on  the 
IGlh  of  June.  In  a  work  of  considerable  historical  importance,1 
which  appeared  in  February,  1847,  and  to  which  we  shall  have 
occasion  frequently  to  refer,  this  particular  transaction  was 
minutely  gone  into,  for  the  purpose  of  justifying  Lord  Sidmouth, 
as  Secretary  of  State  for  the  Home  Department,  against  the  im- 
putations which  arose  out  of  the  employment  of  such  persons  as 
Oliver.  "  None  of  them,"  says  the  author,2  "  were  employed  in 
the  first  instance  by  Lord  Sidmouth,  but  themselves  sought  him 
out ;  and  if,  which  is  not  probable,  they  in  any  instances  insti- 
gated the  conspirators  to  crime,  in  order  to  betray  them,  the 
treacherous  act  must  have  been  entirely  their  own  ;  as  nothing 
would  have  excited  more  his  lordship's  indignation  than  the  bare 
idea  of  so  base  a  proceeding."  The  Dean  of  Norwich  has  ob- 
tained the  most  satisfactory  testimony  of  Lord  Stratford  (for- 
merly Sir  John  Byng)  to  this  opinion  of  Lord  Sidmouth's  own 
conduct,  in  a  letter  written  in  August,  1846;  "Oliver,"  Lord 
Stratford  writes,8  "  was  sent  to  me  with  a  letter  from  Lord  Sid- 
mouth, to  the  purport  that  he,  Oliver,  was  going  down  into  that 
part  of  the  country  where  meetings  were  being  frequently  held, 
and  that  lie  had  been  desired  to  communicate  to  me  any  informa- 
tion he  might  obtain  as  to  the  time  and  place  of  such  meetings, 
in  order  that  I  might  take  timely  measures  to  prevent  their 
taking  place  ;  the  wish  and  intention  being  to  prevent,  not  to 
encourage  them,  as  was  alleged  against  the  government."  Sir 
John  Byng  himself  was  perfectly  incapable,  as  was  acknowl- 
edged on  all  hands,  of  turning  the  spy  into  a  tempter.  We  have 
no  doubt  that  Oliver  was  a  double  deceiver.  On  the  1 6th  of 
June,  Mr.  Allsop,  who  had  been  active  at  Nottingham  in  the 
preservation  of  the  peace,  as  the  Dean  of  Norwich  reports,  wrote 
to  Lord  Sidmouth  as  follows:4  "I  feel  myself  called  upon,  in 
justice  to  Oliver,  to  make  this  communication  to  your  lordship 

1  Life  and  Correspondence  of  Lord  Sidmouth,  by  the  Hon.  George  Pellew, 
D.  D.,  Dean  of  Norwich. 
*  Vol.  iii.  p.  187.  8  Life,  hi.  p.  194.  •*  Life,  iii.  p.  189. 


128  HISTORY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [BOOK  I. 

respecting  him.  The  first  time  I  ever  saw  him  was  on  the  7th 
of  June,  on  his  arrival  at  Nottingham  from  Leeds.  Although 
he  then  knew  that  a  meeting  was  to  take  place  in  the  evening, 
he  fixed  to  leave  for  Birmingham  in  the  afternoon,  and  only  con- 
sented to  stay  for  the  meeting  at  the  solicitation  of  Mr.  Hooley 
and  myself,  in  order  to  furnish  us  witli  the  necessary  information. 
Oliver  expressly  stated  to  us  that  his  instructions  from  Sir  John 
Byng  were,  not  to  conceal  anything  as  to  the  Yorkshire  meeting 
by  which  these  people  could  be  deceived ;  and  he  also  stated  his 
instructions  from  your  lordship,  not  to  hold  out  any  encourage- 
ment. It  was  then  most  explicitly  decided,  that  ut  the  meeting 
in  the  evening  he  should  not,  in  any  way  whatever,  hold  out  the 
least  encouragement  or  inducement  to  the  persons  who  might 
be  there,  to  take  any  other  steps  than  such  as  they  might  think 
proper  to  adopt  themselves ;  and  1  am  persuaded,  my  lord,  that 
such  was  this  man's  conduct  accordingly,  for  his  li!e  was  in  the 
greatest  danger,  their  suspicion  of  him  being  excited  by  his  re- 
fusal to  remain  at  Nottingham  and  countenance  their  proceedings, 
and  he  only  consented  to  stay,  at  l.-ist,  to  lessen  their  suspicions." 
Of  this  meeting  at  Nottingham  on  tlie  7th  of  June,  the  trials  of 
the  Derby  traitors  convey  no  record.  All  evidence  was  sup- 
pressed of  any  circumstances  prior  to  the  8th  of  June.  We 
have  now  to  follow  the  course  of  these  remarkable  trials,1  with 
the  certainty  that  the  spy  of  government  was  at  the  meeting  of 
the  7th  of  June,  at  which  this  outbreak  was  organized,  and  with 
a  tolerably  clear  conviction,  as  will  become  more  evident,  that  the 
unhappy  agents  in  this  insurrection  were  acted  upon  by  the  most 
extraordinary  delusions  from  without.  The  defence  of  the  sus- 
pension of  the  Habeas  Corpus  was,  that  the  leaders  of  a  con- 
spiracy might  be  seized  so  as  to  prevent  an  outbreak.  The 
peace  preservers  of  Nottingham  on  the  7th  of  June  induced  the 
government  spy  to  attend  a  meeting  of  supposed  conspirators,  for 
the  purpose  of  giving  them  the  necessary  information.  If  they 
had  acted  upon  that  information!  by  arresting  the  conspirators, 
the  Derby  insurrection  .would  have  been  crushed  in  the  egg. 
The  expression  of  Mr.  Allsop,  "  it  was  explicitly  decided ''  that 
no  encouragement  should  be  given  by  the  spy,  assumes  a  discus- 
sion previous  to  the  decision.  Where  there  are  clear  and  honest 
intentions  alone,  it  is  not  necessary  explicitly  to  decide  against 
the  adoption  of  a  treacherous  and  disgraceful  line  of  conduct. 

On  Sunday,  the  <Sth  of  June,2  there  was  a  remarkable  assem- 
blage at  Pentridge,  a  village  situated  some  two  miles  from  the 
Ambergate  station,  on  the  present  North  Midland  Railway.  The 
village  is  in  the  hilly  and  thinly-peopled  district  to  the  west  of 

1  State  Trials,  xxxii.  pp.  755-130-t. 

2  Ibid.,  Evidence  for  the  Crown,  pp.  795-863. 


CHAP.  IX.]  JEREMIAH  BRANDRETH.  129 

the  river  Derwcnt.  In  the  neighborhood  of  Pentridge  there  are 
several  other  scattered  villages  —  all  not  far  removed  from  a 
direct  road  to  Nottingham.  About  a  mile  from  Pentridge,  at 
Butterley,  was  a  large  iron-foundry.  Two  men,  in  the  employ  of 
the  proprietors  of  this  foundry,  went  into  the  White  Morse  pub- 
lic-house, at  Pentridge,  in  the  morning  of  the  8th  of  June,  and 
found  a  good  many  persons  in  the  parlor  there,  "  talking  about 
this  revolution."  There  was  one  amongst  them  they  called  "  The 
Captain."  He  had  a  map  in  his  hand,  and  the  people  cnme  in, 
and  kept  asking  him  questions ;  and  he  said,  there  would  be  no 
good  to  be  done  except  a  complete  overthrow  of  the  government. 
All  the  country  was  to  rise  —  all  at  one  time.  Many  talked 
thus.  They  made  no  secret.  They  spoke  it  openly.  They  did 
not  mind  who  heard  them.  They  said  they  had  plenty  of  pikes  ; 
and  they  would  go  and  take  Nottingham  wholly  to  themselves ; 
and  when  they  got  to  Nottingham,  every  man  would  have  a  hun- 
dred guineas,  and  plenty  of  rum,  and  it  would  be  nothing  but  a 
journey  of  pleasure.  This  extraordinary  assembly  lasted  six  or 
seven  hours.  The  two  men  from  the  iron-works  were  special 
constables;  but  they  were  afraid  to  say  anything  about  it.  Hav- 
ing agreed  to  meet  on  the  night  of  the  9th,  after  dark,  the  peo- 
ple separated.  The  captain,  with  the  map  in  his  hand,  was 
Jeremiah  Brandreth,  a  framework-knitter,  whose  family  had 
received  parochial  relief.  Mr.  Denman  —  who  was  counsel  for 
the  prisoners  —  after  Brandreth  had  been  convicted,  compared 
this  man  with  the  Corsair  of  Lord  Byron,  as  one  who 

"  Dazzles,  leads,  yet  chills,  the  vulgar  heart," 
and  obtains  his  superiority  by 

"  The  power,  the  nerve,  the  magic  of  the  mind." 

In  spite  of  Mr.  Denman's  rhetorical  description  of  the  mastery 
of  this  man  over  his  weak  followers,  through  "  the  influence  of 
great  courage,  of  uncommon  decision,  of  unrelenting  firmness  ; 
the  influence  of  an  eye  like  no  eye  that  I  ever  beheld  before,  of 
a  countenance  and  figure  formed  for  activity,  enterprise,  and 
command,"  we  must  be  content  to  believe,  from  the  evidence  of 
Brandreth's  act-;,  that  he  was  a  frantic  enthusiast,  goaded  to  vio- 
lence by  great  poverty,  by  imaginary  oppression,  and,  what  is 
more,  by  the  grossest  delusions  as  to  his  own  power  and  the 
strength  of  his  cause.  We  do  not  think  that  he  was  the  less 
dangerous  from  his  real  character  and  the  real  circumstances 
around  him ;  but,  we  believe,  as  Mr.  Efenman  came  to  the  con- 
clusion, that,  in  spite  of  his  influence  and  command,  "  he  was 
most  clearly  himself  an  instrument  wielded  by  other  hands." 
On  Saturday  night,  the  7th  of  June,  Oliver  goes  to  a  meeting  at 
Nottingham,  with  instructions  from  Sir  John  Byng,  "not  to 

VOL.   II.  9 


130  HISTORY  OF  THE   PLACE.  [Boon  L 

conceal  anything  as  to  the  Yorkshire  meeting  by  which  these  peo- 
ple could  be  deceived."  On  Sunday  morning  the  ^Nottingham 
captain  is  beard  saying,  "All  the  country  is  to  rise,  all  at  one 
time."  On  Monday  night  he  passes  the  door  of  a  laboring  man 
at  South  Wingfield,  about  three  miles  from  Pentridge,  in  his  way 
to  an  old  barn  up  in  the  field  ;  and  he  urges  the  man  to  come 
with  him,  saying  that  "  the  countries,  England,  Ireland,  and 
France,  were  to  rise  that  night  at  ten  o'clock  ; "  and  that  "  the 
northern  clouds,  men  from  the  north,  would  come  down  and 
sweep  all  before  them."  This  is  somewhat  different  from  the 
information  that  Oliver  was  authorized  to  give  to  the  ^sottinghaiu 
meeting,  that  the  Yorkshire  delegates  —  the  northern  clouds  — 
were  scattered  on  the  previous  Friday.  It  is  difficult  not  to 
regard  the  language  of  Brandreth  as  pure  insanity,  especially 
when  we  contrast  it  with  the  sober  sense  of  some  around  him. 
"  There  was  an  old  woman  standing  by,"  says  the  South  Wing- 
field  man,  "  and  she  tapped  him  on  the  shoulder,  and  said,  •  My 
lad,  we  have  got  a  magistrate  here ; ' "  and  the  laborer  himself, 
*'  thought  he  must  be  drunk  or  mad,  to  think  of  such  things." 
But  on  the  madman  went.  In  the  old  barn  at  South  Wingfield 
he  assembled  twenty  men,  who  had  pikes  and  guns,  and  they 
went  forward,  stopping  at  solitary  houses,  and  demanding  guns, 
and  dragging  unwilling  men  out  of  their  beds  and  hiding-places, 
and  compelling  them  to  march  with  them.  At  the  farm-house  of 
a  widow,  who  behaved  with  unflinching  courage,  Brandreth 
fired  in  at  a  window,  and  killed  one  of  her  servants,  upon  arms 
being  refused  to  him.  His  followers  said  he  should  not  have 
shot  that  poor  innocent  man ;  and  he  replied,  it  was  his  duty  to 
do  it.  Onwards  they  marched  —  the  volunteers  and  the  con- 
scripts ;  and  the  captain,  when  they  halted  at  some  lone  dwell- 
ings, and  met  with  any  one  who  refused  to  march,  had  his  ready 
exhortation,  that  "  a  great  cloud  out  of  the  north  would  sweep 
all  before  them ;  "  with  the  more  particular  information,  that  "  it 
would  not  be  necessary  to  go  further  than  ^Nottingham,  for  Lon- 
don would  be  taken  by  the  time  they  got  there."  Who  can  doubt 
that  the  unhappy  man  was  dreaming  of  the  "  75,000  men  in  the 
eastern  parts  of  the  capital,  and  75,000  in  the  western  ?  "  Some 
<.f  the  pressed  men  ran  away  in  the  darkness;  one  refused  to 
march  in  rank,  and  upon  Brandreth  swearing  he  would  shoot  him 
in  a  moment,  the  bold  fellow  stepped  up  to  him  with  his  knife  ; 
and  the  captain  turned  off  from  him.  During  all  this  march  the 
rain  was  incessant.  By  the  time  they  reached  the  Butterley 
iron-works,  their  numbers  amounted  to  about  a  hundred.1  Bran- 

1  This  is  the  distinct  evidence  of  the  bers  amounted  to  500.     Biography,  as 

manager  of  the  works.    The  Dean  of  well  as  history,  should  have  regard  to 

Norwich  says,  that,  when  they  arrived  accuracy. 
at  the  Butterley  iron-works,  their  mini- 


CHAP.  IX.l     EVIDENCE   OF  SAMUEL  BAMFORD.  131 

dreth  was  boldly  met  by  Mr.  Goodwin,  the  manager  of  the  works, 
and,  when  he  demanded  men,  was  told  :  "  You  shall  not  have  one 
of  them ;  you  are  too  many  already,  unless  you  were  going  for  a 
better  purpose ;  disperse  !  depend  upon  it,  the  laws  will  be  too 
strong  for  you  ;  you  are  going  with  hnlters  about  your  necks." 
Three  men  took  shelter  in  the  office  of  the  works.  One  man, 
Isaac  Ludlam.  who  was  afterwards  convicted  and  executed,  was 
exhorted  by  Mr.  Goodwin  not  to  go  on ;  but  he  answered,  much 
agitated,  "I  am  as  bad  as  I  can  be  ;  1  cannot  go  back."  Af  er 
a  short  pause,  Brandreth  gave  the  command,  "  March."  Soon 
after,  this  main  body  was  followed  by  about  fifty  other  men.  On 
the  morning  of  the  10th  of  June,  Mr.  Rolleston,  a  magistrate, 
went  from  Nottingham,  on  the  road  towards  Eastwood,  about  six 
miles  from  Nottingham,  and  meeting  there  a  considerable  body 
of  men  armed  with  pikes,  he  returned  to  Nottingham,  and  pro- 
cured some  troops  from  the  barracks,  eighteen  privates,  com- 
manded by  a  captain  and  a  subaltern.  Upon  hearing  that  the 
soldiers  were  coming,  the  insurgents  fled.  The  captain  in  com- 
mand of  the  hussars  deposed  that  the  military  were  kept  on  the 
alert  during  the  night.  He  was  ordered  out  with  a  party,  on  the 
road  towards  Derbyshire,  about  six  in  the  morning,  and  ap- 
proached about  sixty  men  near  Eastwood,  who  fled  across  the 
fields.  A  man  in  the  road  tried  to  form  them,  but  they  paid  no 
attention  to  him.  A  number  of  prisoners  were  taken,  and  about 
forty  guns  and  other  arms  were  collected  together. 

Tims  ended  "  the  Derbyshire  insurrection."  For  these  offences, 
three  men  were  executed  ;  eleven  were  transported  for  life ;  four 
were  transported  for  fourteen  years ;  and  five  were  imprisoned 
for  various  terras. 

There  is  one  piece  of  evidence  connected  with  these  transac- 
tions which  the  Dean  of  Norwich  has  overlooked,  —  the  evidence 
of  Samuel  Bnmford,  a  poor  weaver,  but  a  man  of  considerable 
talent  and  unquestionable  honesty  —  a  man  who  has  now  a  keen 
sense  of  his  early  mistakes,  and  a  conviction  that  "  no  redemption 
for  the  masses  can  exist,  save  one  that  should  arise  from  their 
own  virtue  and  knowledge."  Bamford  was  arrested  on  a  suspi- 
cion of  high  treason,  and  was  delivered  to  the  custody  of  the 
king's  messengers  on  the  30th  of  March,  who  conveyed  him  from 
Manchester  to  London.  He  was  five  times  examined  before  the 
Privy  Council ;  and  he  describes  these  examinations  as  being  con- 
ducted by  Lord  Sidmouth  with  the  greatest  patience  and  kind- 
ness. He  was  finally  discharged  on  the  30th  of  April.  Soon  after 
Bamford's  return  to  Middleton,  he  found  that  private  meetings 
had  been  held  in  his  absence,  and  suspicious  intrigues  carried 
on  ;  that  Joseph  Mitchell,  an  old  acquaintance,  and  a  stranger,  were 
the  chief  movers  in  these  proceedings.  One  day,  there  came 


132  HISTORY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [BOOK  L 

to  him  an  old  man,  who  had  been  his  co-delegnte  to  London  from 
Derby,  and  a  tall  decent-looking  young  man,  much  like  a  tow  n's 
•weaver.  The  old  man  said  a  delegate  meeting  was  to  be  held 
in  Yorkshire,  which  would  cause  a  finishing  blow  to  be  levelled 
at  the  borough-mongers  ;  and  that  a  man  Itom  Middleton,  whose 
name  he  gave,  and  who  had  attended  several  previous  meetings, 
was  particularly  wanted  on  the  present  occasion  —  concluding  by 
asking  Bamford  to  direct  him  to  that  man.  Bamford  suspected 
mischief,  and  pretended  not  to  know  such  a  man.  He  wa.-  a  -- 
picious  of  the  designs  of  the  stranger,  whe  had  been  about  Mid- 
dleton, and  had  even  inquired  for  him  after  his  discharge.  Bam- 
ford advised  the  old  man  to  pause  ;  but  he  "  huffed  at  the  advice." 
The  old  man  was  Thomas  Bacon,  one  of  those  who  were  arraigned 
at  Derby,  and  transported  for  life  ;  the  young  man  was  William 
Turner,  who  was  executed  with  Brandreth  and  Ludlam.  Barn- 
ford  thus  concludes  this  narrative  :  *  "  The  stranger  whom  Joseph 
Mitchell  had  so  assiduously  introduced  amongst  the  discontented 
classes  of  Lancashire,  Yorkshire,  and  Derbyshire,  first  inveigled 
them  into  treasonable  associations,  then  to  armed  insurrections, 
and  then  betrayed  them.  That  stranger,  that  'betrayer,  reader, 
was  Oliver,  the  spy." 

The  acquittal  of  Watson,  for  high  treason,  took  place  on  the 
16th  of  June.  It  appears  to  have  had  no  influence  on  the  meas- 
ures of  government.  The  second  suspension  of  the  Habeas 
Corpus  was  passed  by  large  majorities  in  both  Houses ;  and  the 
Prince  Regent,  in  liis  speech  closing  this  session  on  the  12th  of 
July,  averred  that  "  a  favorable  change  was  happily  taking  place 
in  the  internal  situation  of  the  country,  which  was  to  be  mainly 
ascribed  to  the  salutary  measures  which  parliament  had  adopted 
for  procuring  the  public  tranquillity."  The  private  records  of 
Lord  Sidmouth's  life  show  that  he  had  no  great  confidence  hi  the 
**  favorable  change."  At  the  end  of  July,  Lord  Sidmouth  estab- 
lished his  family  at  Malvern,  intending  to  remain  there  a  short 
time  himself,  "  and  then  back"  as  he  said,  l' to  sedition  and  trea- 
son again  ;  "  his  under-secretary  being  left  in  charge  during  the 
interim.  Before  his  lordship's  departure,  however,  as  he  informed 
his  brother  on  the  20th,2  he  *•  revised  all  the  cases  of  persons  com- 
mitted and  detained  under  the  Suspension  Act ;  and  the  result, 
he  trusted,  would  be  the  release  of  some  upon  their  own  recog- 
nizance, and  increased  indulgence  to  those  who  could  not  be  re- 
leased." How  stands  the  balance,  then,  of  -  sedition  and  trea- 
son," on  the  part  of  the  people,  and  "  the  salutary  measures  for 
preserving  the  public  tranquillity,"  on  the  part  of  the  govern- 
ment ?  Watson  was  acquitted  of  hi^h  treason,  alleged  against 
him  for  his  absurd  and  guilty  participation  in  the  Spa-fields  riots, 

l  Life  of  a  Radical,  L  p.  156.  2  Lord  Sidmouth's  Life,  iii.  p.  196. 


CHAP.  IX.l  RESULTS  OF  THE  TRIALS.  133 

which  formed  so  important  a  matter  of  the  first  reports  of  the 
secret  committee.  Three  others  of  the  Spa-fields  conspirators,1 
indicted  with  him,  were  discharged ;  the  younger  Watson  had 
eluded  all  pursuit.  The  persons  imprisoned  in  Edinburgh  Castle 
and  Glasgow  jail,  on  the  charge  of  treason,  seventeen  in  number, 
were  set  at  liberty  in  July,  receiving  seven  shillings  each  to 
carry  them  home.  The  Yorkshire  insurrection  thus  terminated. 
"  The  trials  of  the  state-prisoners,2  as  they  have  been  called, 
closed  at  York,  this  day,  August  22 ;  and  of  the  twenty-four  per- 
sons against  whom  the  government  solicitor  was  instructed  to 
institute  prosecutions,  ten  have  been  pronounced  not  guilty ; 
against  eleven  others  no  bills  were  found ;  and  one  has  been  lib- 
erated on  bail ;  leaving  only  two  of  the  whole  number  in  con- 
finement, and  these  two  have  been  detained  without  trial,  by  a 
secretary  of  state's  warrant,  under  the  suspension  of  the  Habeas 
Corpus  Act."  The  Manchester  Blanketeers  were  all  discharged, 
in  spite  of  the  opinion  of  the  Duke  of  Northumberland,  expressed 
to  Lord  Sidmouth  by  letter  on  the  21st  of  March,  that  the  French 
Revolution  was  to  be  acted  over  again  in  England :  3  "  I  am 
sure,  my  lord,  the  intended  march  of  the  delegates  from  Man- 
chester to  London  must  too  forcibly  have  reminded  your  lord- 
ship of  the  march  of  the  Marseillois  to  Paris,  at  the  commence- 
ment of  the  French  Revolution,  not  to  have  convinced  your  lord- 
ship that  the  copy  must  have  been  at  least  recommended  by  some 
person  deeply  concerned  in  the  original."  These  were  the  ex- 
citements of  the  fears  of  the  great  and  the  rich,  that  kept  the 
Secretary  of  State  in  a  fever  about  plots,  and  "  sedition  and  trea- 
son." He  was  a  courageous  man,  and  what  is  called  a  consistent 
man.  He  was  complimented  on  every  side  about  his  "  public 
exertions."4  Whatever  of  peaceful  and  happy  prospects  re- 
mained in  the  country  were  to  be  attributed  to  his  "  firmness  and 
prompt  exertions  in  keeping  down  the  democrats."  Sedition 
and  treason  had  become  associated  in  his  own  mind  with  his  own 
importance.  He  was  anxious  to  discharge  his  duty  ;  and  he  saw 
only  one  path  before  him  —  the  detection  and  punishment  of 
democratic  movements.  He  lived  in  an  atmosphere  of  plots. 
On  the  7th  of  October  there  were  '•  extraordinary  circumstances  " 
which  would  prevent  him  making  another  excursion  that  year. 
This  was  a  plot  to  attack  the  Tower  on  the  1 1  th  of  October. 
The  plan,  as  we  learn  by  a  private  letter  of  Lord  Sidmouth  on 
the  13th,5  was  in  imitation  of  that  of  Despard,  and  a  number  of 
persons  met  accordingly  on  Tower  Hill,  but  retired  and  dispersed. 
No  other  record  exists  of  this  plot  that  we  can  discover.  With 
the  Derby  insurrections,  therefore,  must  the  historian  be  content, 

i  Annual  Register,  July,  1817,  p.  64.  2  Ibid.  p.  72. 

»  Life  of  Lord  Sidmouth,  iii.  p.  178.          <  Ibid.  p.  1<J9.  6  Ibid.  p.  200. 


134  HISTORY   OF   THE   PEACE.  [Boos  I 

if  he  desire  to  bring  forward  a  permanent  example  of  the  tri- 
umphs of  government  over  the  rebellious  de-igns  that  frightened 
the  isle  from  its  propriety.  And  yet  it  would  appear  that  the 
course  of  thes*1  trials  was  not  entirely  satisfactory  to  all  in  author- 
ity, as  they  certainly  were  not  to  the  nation  in  general.  Lord 
Colchester  writes  to  Lord  Sidmouth  on  the  26th  of  October:  "I 
cannot  refrain  from  expressing  my  great  satisfaction  at  the  issue 
of  the  Derby  trials,  as  most  important  to  the  country,  in  dispelling 
the  mischievous  delusion  that  high  treason  was  an  offence  for 
which  low  persons  were  not  punishable."  We  have  great  doubts 
whether  such  a  mischievous  delusion  ever  existed.  We  know 
that  when  the  Cato  Street  conspirators  were  brought  to  their 
just  punishment,  there  was  one  universal  feeling  of  satisfaction 
throughout  the  land,  without  regard  to  their  being  low  persons. 
But  we  also  know  that  the  executions  at  Derby  —  with  the  ex- 
ception of  that  of  Brandreth,  who  had  dyed  his  hands  in  blood  — 
left  a  permanent  conviction  upon  the  minds,  not  only  of  low  per- 
sons, but  of  a  large  number  of  the  best  informed  and  the  most 
influential  in  the  midland  districts,  that  these  unhappy  men  were 
state  victims.  There  was  a  profound  belief  that  the  ignorant 
violence  of  these  deluded  creatures  was  criminal,  but  that  it  was 
not  high  treason.  Lord  Colchester  intimates  that  some  in  high 
places  held  the  same  belief:  "  Also,  I  do  most  exceedingly  re- 
joice, for  the  sake  of  my  friend,  the  Secretary  of  vState,  that  his 
judgment  has  been  finally  vindicated  against  all  those  hesitating 
and  timid  counsels  which  would  have  inclined  to  discountenance 
these  proceedings,  burying  the  reputation  of  the  government  in 
irredeemable  disgrace."  A  discriminating  lenity  in  this  solitary 
case  of  condemnation  by  a  jury,  might,  as  it  appears  to  us  at  the 
end  of  thirty  years,  have  redeemed  some  little  of  the  disgrace 
which  must  forever  attach  to  the  alarm  system  of  1817. 


CHAP.  X.]  LORD   SIDMOUTH'S   CIRCULAR.  135 


CHAPTER  X. 

ON  moving  the  second  reading  of  the  Habeas  Corpus  Suspen- 
sion Bill,  Lord  Sidmouth  made  the  following  state-  prosecutions 
ment:  "Some  noble  lords  had  complained  that  pros-  for libel- 
ecutions  had  not  been  instituted  against  the  authors,  printei-s, 
or  publishers  of  infamous  libels  ;  but  it  was  but  justice  to  gov- 
ernment to  state  that  they  had  not  neglected  their  duty  with 
regard  to  these  publications.  As  soon  as  they  reached  the 
hands  of  ministers,  they  were  transmitted  to  the  law-officers  of 
the  crown,  who  felt  that  these  publications  were  drawn  up  with 
so  much  dexterity  —  the  authors  had  so  profited  by  former  les- 
sons of  experience  —  that  greater  difficulties  to  conviction  pre- 
sented themselves  than  at  any  former  time."  Within  a  mouth 
from  this  declaration  Lord  Sidmouth  intrusted  the  administration 
of  the  law  of  libel  to  less  gcrupulous  hands  than  the  law-officers 
of  the  crown.  On  the  27th  of  March,  the  Secretary  of  State 
addressed  his  famous  circular-letter  to  the  lords  lieu-  Lord  Sid. 
tenants  of  counties,  in  which,  urging  the  importance  mouth's 
of  preventing  the  circulation  of  blasphemous  and  se- 
ditious pamphlets,  he  stated  that  he  had  obtained  the  opinion 
of  the  law-officer-,  that  "  a  justice  of  the  peace  may  issue  a 
warrant  to  apprehend  a  person  charged  before  him,  upon  oath, 
with  the  publication  of  libels  of  the  nature  in  question,  and  com- 
pel him  to  give  bail  to  answer  the  charge."  He  called,  therefore, 
up<m  the  lords  lieutenants  to  communicate  this  opinion  at  the  ensu- 
ing quarter  sessions,  so  that  all  magistrates  might  act  thereupon. 
Such  a  proceeding  as  this  was  perhaps  the  most  daring  invasion 
of  public  liberty  that  had  been  attempted  since  the  time  of  the 
Stuarts.  It  called  forth  from  Lord  Grey,  on  the  12th  of  May, 
one  of  the  mo>t  luminous  speeches  which  that  statesman  ever 
delivered.  One  passage  may  be  fitly  quoted : *  "  In  all  the 
varieties  of  writing  which  may  constitute  the  offence  of  libel, 
what  more  difficult  to  be  decided  than  the  question  of  their  guilt 
or  innocence?  What  more  exposed  to  the  influence  of  undue 
motives  in  it<  decision  ?  It  has  been  formerly  stated,  by  some 
of  the  most  eminent  persons  in  the  profession  of  the  law,  nay, 

J,  xxxvi.  p.  474. 


136  HISTORY   OF  THE   PEACE.  [Boos  L 

by  almost  all  of  them,  to  be  so  nice  and  difficult  a  question,  that 
it  could  not  be  safely  Ic.t  even  to  a  special  jury;  that  they  were 
only  to  Hnd  the  fact  of  publication ;  and  that  the  criminality  of 
the  writing,  as  a  question  of  law,  was  exclusively  for  the  decision 
of  the  court.  This,  my  lords,  was  long  contended  for.  and  long 
acted  upon  as  law ;  till,  happily  for  the  freedom  of  the  press, 
and  for  the  liberty  of  the  country,  of  which  the  press  is  the 
great  palladium,  by  the  perseverance  of  my  noble  and  learned 
friend  (Lord  Erskine),  and  by  the  exertions  of  the  man  whom, 
in  public  life,  I  most  loved  and  admired  (Mr.  Fox),  that  principle 
was  at  length  exploded  ;  and  by  the  Libel  Bill  it  was  at  last 
established,  that  in  prosecutions  for  libel,  both  the  law  and  the 
fact  were  within  the  province  of  the  jury,  and  to  be  determined 
by  them.  But,  my  lords,  what  avails  this  just  and  beneficent 
statute  —  Avhat  security  is  there  either  for  the  freedom  of  the 
press,  or  the  liberty  of  the  subject  —  if,  whilst  you  have  imposed 
this  salutary  restraint  upon  the  judges  in  trials  for  libel  you 
give  to  them,  and  to  justices  of  the  peace,  before  trial,  a  right  to 
decide  that  difficult  question;  and  to  commit  to  prison  —  in 
many  instances,  perhaps,  to  inflict  a  severer  punishment  than  the 
court  upon  conviction  would  adjudge  —  upon  a  charge  which, 
after  all,  may  turn  out  to  have  had  no  foundation,  but  in  the 
false  interpretation  of  words  perfectly  innocent,  by  the  justice 
before  whom  the  charge  was  brought  ?  ....  If  such  be  the 
power  of  the  magistrate,  and  if  this  be  the  law,  where,  I  ask, 
are  all  the  boasted  securities  of  our  independence  and  freedom  ?  " 
The  Hou^e  of  Lords  was  indifferent  to  the  preservation  of  these 
boasted  securities.  Writing,  four  months  after  this  debate,  to  the 
Bishop  of  Durham,  Lord  Sidmouth  says : l  •'  The  attempt  to  check 
the  progress  of  treason  and  blasphemy,  by  apprising  the  magis- 
trates that  they  had  the  power  of  apprehending  and  holding  to 
bail  the  publishers  or  venders  of  either,  was  one  of  the  charges 
brought  against  me  in  the  course  of  the  last  session.  Such  a 
charge  it  shall  be  my  constant  endeavor  to  deserve  ;  and  I  am 
happy  in  being  able  10  assure  your  lordship  that  the  activity  of 
the  itinerant  dealers  in  these  articles  is  materially  controlled, 
and  their  number  greatly  diminished."  We  apprehend  that 
there  cannot  be  the  slightest  doubt  in  most  minds,  at  the  present 
day,  that  (his  proceeding  of  Lord  Sidmouth  was  most  unconstitu- 
tional ;  and  that  he  speaks  and  writes  in  defence  of  his  conduct, 
with  all  the  self-approval  of  the  worst  political  bigot  of  the 
worst  periods  of  tyranny.  Truly  did  Sir  Samuel  Romilly  say, 
in  the  discussion  of  the  same  question  :2  By  the  constitution  of 
this  country  there  are  only  two  modes  in  which  the  law,  in 
matters  of  doubt,  can  be  declared :  one  is,  by  the  whole  legisla- 
1  Lift,  iii.  p.  176.  a  Hansard,  xxxvi.  pp.  1102-1165. 


CHAP.  X.]          FLIGHT   OF   WILLIAM   COBBETT.  137 

ture,  by  a  declaratory  statute ;  the  other,  by  the  decisions  of  the 
judges  upon  points  which  have  come  judicially  before  them.  It 
has  been  at  all  times  thought  of  the  utmost  importance  to  pre- 
vent the  law  from  being  in  any  other  way  declared,  and  particu- 
larly to  guard  aga:nst  the  crown  presuming  to  declare  it 

The  circular,  resting  on  the  opinion  of  the  law-officers,  had  de- 
clared the  laws  of  the  land  on  a  point  that  was  before  doubtful ; 
and  the  Secretary  of  State,  assisted  by  such  advice  as  he  could 
command,  had  thus  a-sumed  the  functions  of  legislation." 

It  is  difficult  to  imagine  a  more  degraded  and  dangerous  position 
than  that  in  which  every  political  writer  was  placed  during  the 
year  1817.  In  the  first  place,  he  was  subject,  by  a  Secretary 
of  State's  warrant,  to  be  imprisoned  upon  suspicion,  under  the 
Suspension  of  the  Habeas  Corpus  Act.  Secondly,  he  was  open 
to  an  ex-officio  information,  under  which  he  would  be  compelled 
to  find  bail,  or  be  imprisoned.  This  power  was  extended  so 
as  to  compel  bail,  by  an  act  of  1808;  but  from  1808  to  1811, 
during  which  three  years  forty  such  informations  were  lanf,  only 
one  person  was  held  to  bail.  In  1817  numerous  ex-ojficio  infor- 
mations were  fi'ed,  and  the  almost  invar  able  practice  was  to 
hold  the  alleged  offender  to  bail,  or  in  default  to  commit  to 
prison.  Under  this  act  Mr.  Hone  and  others  were  committed 
to  prison  during  this  year.  To  complete  this  trip'e  cord  with 
which  the  ministers  believed  they  could  bind  down  the  '•  man- 
mountain  "  of  the  press,  came  forth  Lord  Sidmouth's  circular. 
The  entire  course  of  these  proceedings  was  a  signal  failure. 
There  was  only  one  solitary  instance  of  success —  William  Cob- 
bett  ran  away.  On  the  28ih  of  March  he  fled  to  America,  sus- 
pending the  publication  of  his  "  Register"  for  four  months.  In 
his  farewell  paper  he  thus  explains  his  motive  for  this  new 
IIe<;ira:1  "Lord  Sidmouth  was  '  sorry  to  say'  that  I  had  not 
written  anything  that  the  law-officers  could  prosecute  with  any 
chance  of  success.  I  do  not  remove  for  the  purpose  of  writing 
libels,  but  for  the  purpose  of  being  able  to  write  what  is  not 
libellous.  I  do  not  retire  from  the  combat  with  the  Attorney- 
General,  but  from  a  combat  witli  a  dungeon,  deprived  of  pen, 
ink,  and  paper.  A  combat  with  the  Attorney- General  is  quite 
unequal  enough.  That,  however,  I  would  have  encountered.  I 
know  too  well  what  a  trial  by  special  jury  is.  Yet  that,  or  any 
sort  of  trial,  I  would  have  stayed  to  face.  So  that  I  could  be 
sure  of  a  trial  of  whatever  sort,  I  would  have  run  the  risk.  But 
against  the  absolute  power  of  imprisonment  without  even  a 
hearing,  for  time  unlimited,  in  any  jail  in  the  kingdom,  without 
the  use  of  pen,  ink,  and  paper,  and  without  any  com  inimical  ion 
with  any  soul  but  the  keepers  —  against  such  a  power  it  would 
i  Register,  March  28,  1817. 


138  HISTORY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [BOOK  I. 

have  been  worse  than  madness  to  attempt  to  strive."  It  may  be 
easy  to  call  this  apprehension  cowardice  ;  but  there  can  be  no 
doubt  that  Cobbett  was  the  most  dreaded  of  all  the  political 
writers  of  that  time,  by  tho-e  who  were  terrified  at  the  name 
of  parliamentary  reform.  They  were  especially  in  fear  of  those 
of  whose  '•  dexterity "  Lord  Sidmouth  complained.  Cobbett 
went  un-cathed.  The  terrors  of  the  law  were  reserved  for  more 
incautious  and  feebler  delinquents. 

On  the  12th  of  May,  Earl  Grey  mentioned  in  the  House  of 
Hone's  Lords    that  a  Mr.   Hone  was   proceeded  against    for 

trials.  publishing    some    blasphemous  parody ;    but  he    had 

read  one  of  the  same  nature,  written,  printed,  and  published 
some  years  ago  by  other  people,  without  any  notice  having  been 
officially  taken  of  it.  The  parody  to  which  Earl  Grey  alluded, 
and  a  portion  of  which  he  recited,  was  Canning's  famous  parody, 
"•  Praise  Lepaux  "  —  an  imitation  of  the  Benedicite,  and  of 
passages  in  Job  —  which  was  published  in  the  •'  Anti-Jacobin  ;  " 
ami  he  a-ked  whether  the  authors,  be  they  in  the  cabinet  or  in 
any  other  place,  would  also  be  found  out  and  visited  with  the 
penalties  of  the  law.  This  hint  to  the  obscure  publisher  against 
whom  these  er-officio  informations  had  been  filed  for  blasphe- 
mous and  seditious  parodies,  was  effectually  worked  out  by  him  in 
the  solitude  of  his  prison,  and  in  the  poor  dwelling  where  he  had 
surrounded  himself,  as  he  had  done  from  his  earliest  years,  with  a 
collec  ion  of  odd  and  curious  books,  from  which  he  had  gathered 
an  abundance  of  knowledge  that  was  destined  to  perplex  the 
technical  acquirements  of  the  Attorney-General,  to  whom  the 
sword  and  buckler  of  his  precedents  was  wholly  useless,  and  to 
change  the  determination  of  the  boldest  jud-re  in  the  land,  to 
convict  at  any  rate,  into  the  pros:ration  of  helpless  despair. 
Altogether  the  three  trials  of  William  Hone  are  amongst  the 
most  remarkable  in  our  constitutional  history.  They  produced 
more  distinct  effects  upon  the  temper  of  the  country  than  any 
public  proceedings  of  that  time.  They  taught  the  government 
a  lesson  which  has  never  been  forgotten,  and  to  which,  as  much 
as  to  any  other  cause,  we  owe  the  prodigious  improvement  as  to 
the  law  of  libel  itself,  and  the  use  of  the  law,  in  our  own  day,  — 
an  improvement  which  leaves  what  is  dangerous  in  the  press  to  be 
corrected  by  the  remedial  power  of  the  press  itself;  and  which, 
instead  of  lamenting  over  the  newly  acquired  ability  of  the  masses 
to  read  seditious  and  irreligious  works,  depends  upon  the  general 
diffu-ion  of  this  ability  as  the  surest  corrective  of  the  evils  that 
are  incident  even  to  the  best  gift  of  heaven  —  that  of  knowledge. 
Wisely  did  our  Milton  say : 1  '•  They  are  not  skilful  considerers 
of  human  things,  who  imagine  to  remove  sin  by  removing  the 
1  Liberty  of  Unlicensed  Printing. 


CHAP.  X.]  TRIAL   OF   WILLIAM  HONE.  139 

matter  of  sin."  The  course  that  the  "  not  skilful  considerers  of 
human  things  "  took  in  1817,  was  a  course  that  they  might  have 
avoided  had  they  listened  to  a  great  political  teacher1  of  two 
centuries  before  them  :  —  "  The  punishing  of  wits  enhances  their 
authority  ;  and  a  forbidden  writing  is  thought  to  be.  a  certain 
spark  of  truth  that  flies  up  in  the  faces  of  them  who  seek  to 
tread  it  out." 

On  the  morning  of  the  18th  of  December  there  is  a  consider- 
able crowd  round  the  avenues  of  Guildhall.  An  obscure  book- 
seller, a  man  of  no  substance  or  respectability  in  worldly  eyes,  is 
to  be  tried  for  libel.  He  vends  his  wares  in  a  little  shop  in  the 
Old  Bailey,  where  there  are,  strangely  mingled,  twopenny  political 
pamphlets,  and  old  harmless  (olios  that  the  poor  publisher  keeps 
for  his  especial  reading  as  he  sits  in  his  dingy  back-parlor.  The 
door-keepers  and  officers  of  the  court  scarcely  know  what  is 
going  to  happen  ;  for  the  table  within  the  bar  has  not  the  usual 
covering  of  crimson  bags,  but  ever  and  anon  a  dingy  boy  arrives 
with  an  armful  of  books  of  all  ages  and  sizes,  and  the  whole 
table  is  strewed  with  dusty  and  tattered  volumes  that  the  ushers 
are  quite  sure  have  no  law  within  their  mouldy  covers.  A 
middle-aged  man  —  a  bland  and  smiling  man  —  with  a  half  sad, 
half  merry  twinkle  in  his  eye  —  a  seedy  man,  to  use  an  expres- 
sive word,  whose  black  coat  is  wondrous  brown  and  threadbare  — 
takes  his  place  at  the  table,  and  begins  to  turn  over  the  books 
which  were  his  heralds.  Sir  Samuel  Shepherd,  the  attorney- 
general,  takes  his  seat,  and  looks  compassionately,  as  was  his 
nature  to  do,  at  the  pale  man  in  threadbare  black.  Mr.  Justice 
Abbot  arrives  in  due  time;  a  special  jury  is  sworn;  the  plead- 
ings are  opened ;  and  the  attorney-general  states  the  case  against 
William  Hone,  for  printing  and  publishing  an  impious  and  pro- 
fane libel  upon  tlie  Catechism,  the  Lord's  Prayer,  and  the  Ten 
Commandments,  thereby  bringing  into  contempt  the  Christian 
religion.  '•  It  may  be  said,"  argued  the  attorney-general,  "that 
the  defendant's  object  was  not  to  produce  this  effect.  I  believe 
that  he  meant  it,  in  one  sense,  as  a  political  squib :  but  his 
responsibility  is  not  the  less."  As  the  attorney-general  pro- 
ceeded to  read  passages  from  the  parody  upon  the  Catechism, 
the  crowd  in  court  laughed  ;  the  bench  was  indignant ;  and  the 
attorney-general  said,  (he  laugh  was  the  fullest  proof  of  the 
baneful  effect  of  the  defendant's  publication.  And  so  the  trial 
went  on  in  the  smoothest  way,  and  the  case  for  the  prosecution 
was  closed.  Then  the  pale  man  in  black  rose,  and  with  a  fal- 
tering voice  set  forth  the  difficulty  he  had  in  addressing  the 
court,  and  how  his  poverty  prevented  him  obtaining  counsel. 
And  now  he  began  to  warm  in  the  recital  of  what  he  thought 
i  Lord  Bacon. 


140  HISTORY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [BOOK  I. 

his  wrongs  ;  his  commitments  —  his  hurried  calls  to  plead  —  the 
expense  of  copies  of  the  informations  against  him ;  and  as  Mr. 
Justice  Abbot,  with  perfect  gentleness,  but  with  his  cold  for- 
mality, interrupted  h'm,  the  timid  man.  who  all  thought  would 
have  mumbled  forth  a  hasty  defence,  grew  bolder  and  bolder, 
and  in  a  short  time  had  possession  of  his  audience,  as  if  he 
were  "  some  well-graced  actor  "  who  was  there  to  receive  the 
tribute  of  popular  admiration.1  "  They  were  not  to  inquire 
whether  he  were  a  member  of  the  established  church,  or  a 
dissenter ;  it  was  enough  that  he  professed  himself  to  be  a 
Christian ;  and  he  would  be  bold  to  say,  that  he  m-ide  that  pro- 
fession with  a  reverence  for  the  doctrines  of  Christiani'y  which 
could  not  be  exceeded  by  any  person  in  that  court.  He  had  his 
books  about  him,  and  it  was  from  them  that  he  must  draw  his 
defence.  They  had  been  the  solace  of  his  life.  He  was  too  much 
attached  to  his  books  to  part  with  them.  As  to  parodies,  they 
were  as  old  at  least  as  the  invention  of  printing  ;  and  he  never 
heard  of  a  prosecution  for  a  parody,  either  religious  or  any  other. 
There  were  two  kinds  of  parodies :  one  in  which  a  man  might 
convey  ludicrous  or  ridiculous  ideas  relative  to  some  other  sub- 
ject ;  the  other,  where  it  was  meant  to  ridicule  the  thing  paro- 
died. This  latter  was  not  the  case  here,  and  therefore  he  had  not 
brought  religion  into  contempt."  This  was  the  gist  of  William 
Hone's  defence  To  show  fully  how  this  argument  was  worked 

—  with  what  readiness,  what  coolness,  what  courage  —  would  be 
to  transcribe  the  trials  of  three  days  ;  on  the  first  of  which  the 
defendant  spoke  six  hours  ;  on  the  second,  seven  hours  ;  and  on 
the  last,  eight  hours.      It  was  in  vain  that  the  attorney-general 
urged   that,  to  bring  forward  any  previous  parody  was  the  sa-ne 
thing   as   if  a    person    charged   with    obscenity   should    produce 
obscene  volumes  in  his  defence.     It  was  in  vain  that  Mr.  Justice 
Abbot  repeated  his  wish  that  the  defendant  would  not  read  such 
things.     On  he  went,  till  interruption  was  held  to  be  in  vain. 
It  was  worse  than  vain;  it  was  unjust.     Truly  did    Hone  reply 
to  Mr.  Justice  Abbot :  "  My  lord,  your  lordship's  observation  is 
in  the  very  spirit  of  what  Pope  Leo  X.  said  to  Martin  Luther, 

—  '  For  God's  sake  don  t  say  a  word  about  the  indulgences  and 
the  monasteries,  and  I'll  give  you  a  living;'  thus  precluding  him 
from  mentioning  the  very  thing  in  d.spute.     I  must  go  on  with 
these  parod  es,  or  I  cannot  go  on  with  my  defence."     Undaunt- 
edly he  went  on,  from  the  current  literature  of  the  time,  such  as 
grave  lawyers  read  in  their  few  hours  of  recreation,  to  the  for- 
gotten volumes  of  old  theology  and  polemical  controversy,  that 
the  said  grave  lawyers  of  ino.li.-rn  days  are  accustomed  to  regard 
as  useless  lumber.    The  editor  of  ''B.ackwoods  Magazine"  was  a 

i  Hone's  First  Trial,  p.  14. 


CHAP.  X.]  SECOND   TRIAL-  OF  HONE.  141 

parodist  —  lie  parodied  a  chapter  of  Ezekiel ;  Martin  Luther  was 
a  parodist  —  he  parodied  the  first  psalm;  Bishop  Latimer  wa.s 
a  parodist,  and  so  was  Dr.  Boys,  Dear  of  Canterbury:  the  author 
of  the  "  Rolliad"  was  a  parodist,  and  so  was  Mr.  Canning.  Pas- 
sage after  passage  did  Mr.  Hone  read  from  author  after  author. 
He  thought  it  was  pretty  clear  that  Martin  Luther  did  not  mean 
to  ridicule  the  Psalms  ;  that  Dr.  Boys  did  not  mean  to  ridicule 
the  Lord's  Prayer ;  that  Mr.  Canning  did  not  mean  to  ridicule 
the  Scriptures.  Why,  then,  should  it  be  presumed  that  he  had 
such  an  intention  ?  As  soon  as  he  found  that  his  parodies  had 
been  deemed  offensive,  he  had  suppressed  them  ;  and  that  he 
had  done  long  before  his  prosecution.  It  was  in  vain  that  the 
attorney-general  replied  that  Martin  Luther  was  a  libeller,  and 
Dr.  Boys  was  a  libeller.  The  judge  charged  the  jury  in  vain. 
William  Hone  was  acquitted,  after  a  quarter  of  an  hour's  delib- 
eration. 

But  Guildhall  "  saw  another  sight."  *  With  the  next  morn- 
ing's fog,  the  fiery  lord  chief-justice  rose  from  his  bed,  and  with 
lowering  brow  took  his  place  in  that  judgment-seat  which  he 
deemed  had  been  too  mercifully  filled  on  the  previous  day.  The 
mild  firmness  of  the  poor  publisher,  and  his  gentlemanly  sense 
of  the  absence  of  harshness  in  the  conduct  of  his  first  trial,  had 
won  for  him  something  like  respect ;  and  when  on  one  occasion 
Mr.  Justice  Abbot  asked  him  to  forbear  reading  a  particular 
parody,  and  the  defendant  said,  "  Your  lordship  and  I  under- 
stand each  other,  and  we  have  gone  on  so  good  humoredly  hith- 
erto, that  I  will  not  break  in  upon  our  harmony,"  it  became 
clear  that  the  puisne  judge  was  not  the  man  to  enforce  a  verdict 
of  guilty  on  the  second  trial.  Again  Mr.  Hone  entered  the  court 
with  his  load  of  books,  on  Friday,  the  19th  of  December.  He 
was  this  day  indicted  for  publishing  an  impious  and  profane 
libel,  called  "  The  Litany,  or  General  Supplication."  Again  the 
attorney-general  affirmed,  that,  whatever  might  be  the  object  of 
the  defendant,  the  publication  had  the  effect  of  scoffing  at  the 
public  service  of  the  church.  Again  the  defendant  essayed  to 
read  from  his  books,  which  course  he  contended  was  essentially 
necessary  for  his  defence.  Then  began  a  contest  which  is  per- 
haps unparalleled  in  an  English  court  of  justice.  Upon  Mr. 
Fox's  Libel  Bill,  upon  ex-officio  informations,  upon  his  right  to 
copies  of  the  indictment  without  extravagant  charges,  the  defend- 
ant battled  his  judge  —  imperfect  in  his  law,  no  doubt,  but  with 
a  firmness  and  moderation  that  rode  over  every  attempt  to  put 
him  down.  Parody  after  parody  was  again  produced,  and  es- 
pecially those  parodies  of  the  litany  which  the  cavaliers  era- 
ployed  so  frequently  as  vehicles  of  satire  upon  the  Roundheads 
i  Second  Trial. 


142  HISTORY  0F  THE  PEACE.  [Boos  I. 

and  Puritans.  The  lord  chief-justice  at  length  gathered  up  his 
exhausted  strength  tor  his  charge;  and  concluded  in  a  strain 
that  left  but  little  hope  for  the  detetiJ-uit :  —  -  He  would  deliver 
the  j»ry  his  solemn  opinion,  as-he  was  required  by  act  of  parlia- 
ment to  do  ;  and  under  the  authority  of  that  act.  and  still  more 
in  obedience  to  his  conscience  and  his  God,  he  pronounced  this  to 
be  a  most  impious  and  profane  libel.  Believing  and  hoping  that 
they,  the  jury,  were  Christians,  he  had  not  any  doubt  but  that 
they  would  be  of  the  same  opinion."  The  jury,  in  an  hour  and 
a  half,  returned  a  verdict  of  Not  Guilty. 

It  might  have  been  expected  that  these  prosecutions  would 
have  here  ended.  "  But  the  chance  of  a  conviction  from  a  third 
jury.1  upon  a  third  indictment,  was  to  be  risked.  On  the  20th  of 
December,  Lord  Elleni>oroiigh  again  took  his  seat  on  the  bench, 
and  the  exhausted  defendant  came  late  into  court,  pale  and  agi- 
tated. The  attorney-general  remarked  upon  his  appearance, 
and  offered  to  postpone  the  proceeding.  The  courageous  man 
made  his  election  to  go  on.  This  third  indictment  was  for  pub- 
lishing a  parody  on  the  creed  of  St.  Athan:isius  called  "  The 
Sinecurisfs  Creed."  After  the  attorney-general  had  finished  his 
address.  Mr.  Hone  asked  for  five  minutes'  delay,  to  arrange  the 
few  thoughts  he  had  been  committing  to  paper.  The  jud^e  re- 
fused the  small  concession ;  but  said  that  he  would  postpone  the 
proceedings  to  another  day,  if  the  defendant  would  request  the 
court  so  to  do.  The  scene  which  ensued  was  thoroughly  dra- 
matic. "  No !  I  make  no  such  request.  My  lord,  I  am  very 
glad  to  see  your  lordship  here  to-day,  because  I  feel  I  sustained 
an  injury  from  your  lordship  yesterday — an  injury  which  I  did 

not  expect  to  sustain Jf  his  lordship  should  think  proper, 

on  this  trial  to-day,  to  deliver  his  opinion,  I  hope  that  opinion  will 

be  coolly  and  dispassionately  expressed  by  his  loniship 

My  lord,  I  think  it  necessary  to  make  a  stand  here.  I  cannot 
say  what  your  lordship  may  consider  to  be  necessary  inter- 
ruption ;  but  your  lordship  interrupted  me  a  great  many  times 
yesterday,  and  then  said  you  would  interrupt  me  no  more,  and 
yet  your  lordship  did  interrupt  me  afterwards  ten  times  as  much. 
....  Gentlemen,  it  is  you  who  are  trying  me  to-day.  His  lord- 
ship is  no  judge  of  me.  You  are  my  judges,  and  you  only  are  my 

judges.     His  lordship  sits  there  to  receive  your  verdict I 

will  not  say  what  his  lordship  did  yesterday ;  hut  I  trust  his  lord- 
ship to-day  will  give  his  opinion  coolly  and  dispassionately,  without 
using  either  expression  or  gesture  which  could  be  construed  as 
conveying  an  entreaty  to  the  jury  to  think  as  he  did.  I  hope  the 
jury  will  not  be  beseeched  into  a  verdict  of  guilty."  The  tr  umph 
of  the  weak  over  the  powerful  was  complete.  "  The  frame  of  >»da- 
i  Third  Trial,  p.  12. 


CHAP.  X.]  ACQUITTAL  OF  HONE.  143 

mantand  soul  of  fire,"  as  the  biographer  of  Lord  Sidmouth  terms 
the  chief-justice,  quailed  before  the  indomitable  courage  of  a 
man  who  was  roused  into  energies  which  would  seem  only  to 
belong  to  the  master-spirits  th;it  have  swayed  the  world.  Yet 
this  was  a  man  who,  in  the  ordinary  business  of  life,  was  inca- 
pable of  enterprise  and  persevering  exertion ;  who  lived  in  the 
nooks  and  corners  of  his  antiquarianism ;  who  was  one  that  even 
his  old  political  opponents  came  to  regard  as  a  gentle  and  innoc- 
uous hunter  after  "all  such  reading  as  was  never  read;"  who 
in  a  few  years  gave  up  his  politics  altogether,  and,  devoting  him 
self  to  his  old  poetry  and  his  old  divinity,  passed  a  quarter  of  a 
century  after  this  conflict  in  peace  with  all  mankind,  and  died  the 
sub-editor  of  a  religious  journal.  It  was  towards  the  close  of 
this  remarkable  trial,  that  the  judge,  who  came  eager  to  con- 
demn, sued  for  pity  to  his  intended  victim.  The  defendant 
quoted  Warburton  and  Tillotson,  as  doubters  of  the  authenticity 
of  the  Athanasian  creed.  "  Even  his  lordship's  father,  the 
Bishop  of  Carlisle,  he  believed,  took  a  similar  view  of  the  creed." 
And  then  the  judge  solemnly  said:  "Whatever  that  opinion 
was,  he  has  gone,  many  years  ago,  where  he  has  had  to  account 
for  his  belief  and  his  opinions For  common  delicacy  for- 
bear." "  Oh,  my  lord,  I  shall  certainly  forbear."  Grave  and 
temperate  was  the  charge  to  the  jury  this  day  ;  and  in  twenty 
minutes  they  returned  a  verdict  of  Not  Guilty. 

On  Sunday,  the  21st  of  December,  the  day  after  this  last  trial, 
Lord  Ellenborough  wrote  thus  to  Lord  Sidmouth  :  *  "  The  dis- 
graceful events  which  have  occurred  at  Guildhall  within  the  last 
three  or  four  days  have  led  me,  both  on  account  of  the  public 
and  myself,  to  consider  very  seriously  my  own  sufficiency,  par- 
ticularly in  point  of  bodily  health  and  strength,  to  discharge  the 
official  duties  of  my  station  in  the  manner  in  which,  at  the  pres- 
ent critical  moment,  it  is  peculiarly  necessary  they  should  be 

discharged I   wish    to  carry  my  meditated   purpose   of 

resignation  into  effect,  as  soon  as  the  convenience  of  government, 
in  regard  to  the  due  selection  and  appointment  of  my  successor, 
may  allow." 

We  have  said  that  the  proceedings  of  the  government  in  the 
libel  matters  of  1817  were  signal  failures.  A  few  miserable 
hawkers  were  held  to  bail,  or  sent  to  prison,  under  Lord  Sid- 
mouth's  circular  ;  some  ex  officio  informations  were  filed,  with 
only  one  conviction  —  that  of  a  printer  in  the  country,  who  re- 
published  one  of  Hone's  parodies,  and  was  tried  before  Hone 
himself.  As  to  the  three  acquittals  we  have  described,  it  is  per- 
fectly evident  that  three  juries  consisting  of  respectable  London 
merchants,  would  have  assuredly  convicted  the  defendant,  had 
i  Life  of  Lord  Sidmouth,  iii.  p.  236. 


144  HISTORY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [Booa:  L 

they  not  felt  that  the  real  sting  of  the  alleged  profaneness  was 
the  severity  of  the  political  satire.  Although  the  indictment 
stated  that  these  parodies  were  seditious  as  well  as  profane,  the 
sedition  was  studiously  kept  in  the  background.  Had  they  not 
been  really  prosecuted  for  their  political  doctrines,  their  unques- 
tionable indecency  and  impropriety  must  have  carried  a  verdict 
against  them  on  the  first  trial.  The  second  and  third  trials 
looked  like  persecution ;  and  public  opinion  threw  its  shield 
over  the  offender. 

A  letter  from  Mr.  Ward  (Lord  Dudley)  to  the  Bishop  of 
Llandatf.  exhibits  a  striking  example  of  the  difference  of  opinion 
that  existed  in  high  quarters  as  to  the  prosecution  of  Hone. 
The  personal  friend  of  George  Canning,  writing  to  a  most  pious 
and  learned  dignitary  of  the  church,  responds  to  the  sentiments 
of  that  dignitary  that  this  transaction  was  uncalled  for  and  op- 
pressive. u  I  am  particularly  gratified  *  with  what  yon  say  about 
the  business  of  Hone.  It  is  an  additional  proof,  if  any  were 
wanting,  of  your  superiority  to  those  prejudices  with  which  place 
and  profession  might  have  inspired  a  man  of  less  sound  under- 
standing, and  a  less  independent  character.  I  have  been  inclined 
all  along  to  think,  and  what  you  say  confirms  me  in  the  opinion, 
that  the  prosecution  was  discreditable  to  the  government  and  its 
law-advisers.  Not  that  I  believe  they  were  actuated  by  tyranni- 
cal principles.  It  was  a  mere  blunder ;  but  the  success  of  it 
would  have  afforded  a  very  mischievous  precedent  for  bad  time?. 
Certainly  this  man  meant  no  good  either  to  church  or  state ;  and 
that  is  reason. enough  for  the  whole  race  of  methodistical  Tories 
—  who  are  guided  entirely  by  their  own  feelings  as  to  the  par- 
ticular case,  without  any  regard  to,  or  knowledge  of,  the  general 
principles  of  justice  —  to  be  sadly  grieved  that  his  ears  were 
not  cropped,  as  they  would  have  been  by  the  Star-Cbamber. 
That  famous  tribunal  no  doubt  had  its  merits.  It  punished 
many  scoundrels  that  could  not  have  been  got  at  by  a  regular 
course  of  law,  and  was  therefore  an  object  of  admiration  so  long 
as  it  lasted,  and  of  regret  when  it  fell,  to  precisely  the  same  sort 
of  persons  that  now  mourn  over  the  acquittal  of  Hone.*1 

l  Lord  Dudley's  Letters,  p.  190. 


CHAP.  XI.l    DEATH   OF   THE  PRIXCESS   CHARLOTTE.      H5 


CHAPTER   XL 

THE  death  of  the  presumptive  heiress  of  the  British  crown, 
after  the  birth  of  a  dead  child,  was  the  great  historical  Deat|i  of  the 
event  of  1H17.  Never  was  a  whole  nation  plunged  Princess 
in  such  deep  and  universal  grief.  From  the  highest  c 
to  the  lowest,  this  death  was  felt  as  a  calamity  that  demanded  the 
intense  sorrow  of  domestic  misfortune.  Around  eVery  fireside 
there  were  suppressed  tears  and  hitter  remembrances.  The  most 
solemn  disclaimer  was  uttered,  through  this  universal  mourning, 
of  the  foul  calumny  against  the  people,  that  they  were  desirous  of 
a  vital  change  in  their  laws  and  institutions.  Whatever  might  be 
their  complaints,  they  showed,  on  this  occasion,  that  their  attach- 
ment to  a  constitutional  monarchy  was  undiminished  by  factious 
contests  or  real  grievances  ;  and  that  they  looked  with  exulting 
hopes  to  the  days  when  a  patriot  queen  should  diffuse  the  sun- 
light of  just  government  through  every  corner  of  a  prosperous 
and  happy  land. 

The  affection  which  the  people  of  Great  Britain  cherished  for 
the  Princess  Charlotte  was  ardent,  but  it  was  discriminating.  It 
was  a  tribute  to  principles  and  to  conduct.  It  was  something 
much  better  than  that  unreflecting  gallantry  which  would  have 
called  "  a  thousand  swords  from  their  scabbards "  to  have  de- 
fended personal  charms ;  it  was  the  admiration  of  private  virtue 
disciplining  itself  for  public  service.  The  Princess  Charlotte 
seemed  born  to  build  up  for  generations  the  succession  to  the 
British  crown,  by  calling  around  her  own  person  the  warmest 
devotion  of  a  zealous  but  a  reflecting  people.  A  female  sovereign 
can  best  make  duty  choice,  and  obedience  happiness.  What  the 
birth  of  this  Princess  promised,  her  education  ripened,  and  her 
own  love  of  real  glory  perfected.  Her  early  years  were  devoted 
to  an  assiduous  preparation  for  her  maturer  honors.  Her  studies 
were  manly,  and  such  as  befitted  the  probable  successor  to 
the  glories  of  an  Elizabeth.  She  was  disciplined  in  the  school 
of  religion  and  of  philosophy.  While  she  was  habituated  to 
those  Christian  exercises,  in  the  performance  of  which  the  reign- 
ing sovereign  and  his  family  furnished  so  excellent  an  example, 
she  stored  up  lessons  for  future  practice  m  her  probable  destiny, 

VOL.   II.  10 


146  HISTORY  OF   THE  PEACE.  [BOOK  L 

by  a  ceaseless  contemplation  of  the  characters  of  the  truly  great 
of  all  ages  arid  countries.  She  knew  the  fountains  of  her  coun- 
try's glory,  she  reverenced  the  founders  of  its  well-balanced  con- 
stitution ;  her  heart  vowed  an  early  allegiance  to  her  nation's  lib- 
erty. In  the  cultivation  of  the  accomplishments  of  her  sex,  while 
she  displayed  an  almost  unlimited  talent,  she  never  lost  sight  of 
their  legitimate  ends  and  uses.  Her  exercises  and  her  amuse- 
ments were  equally  associated  with  her  preparation  for  domestic 
and  public  duties.  The  people  exulted  in  the  maturity  of  her  per- 
son and  her  mind.  She  stood,  as  was  hoped  amongst  her  future 
subjects,  a  beautiful,  an  accomplished,  a  noble-hearted  woman. 
She  seemed  equally  fitted  to  command  reverence  by  the  strength, 
and  win  affection  by  the  graces,  of  her  mind.  Her  state  was  not 
supported  by  ostentation ;  her  greatness  was  not  asserted  by 
pride ;  her  dignity  did  not  estrange  her  from  the  lowly  and  the 
.poor.  Raised  above  the  great  portion  of  society,  she  deeply  felt 
her  alliance  with  the  universal  family  of  the  earth  ;  a^id  while  her 
endeavor  was  to  purify  herself  from  the  follies  and  weaknesses  of 
mankind,  she  delighted  to  partake  their  sympathies,  to  assuage 
their  misfortunes,  to  merit,  by  her  benevolence,  the  homage 
which  was  paid  to  her  rank. 

A  Princess  so  gifted  was  not  a  being  that  would  permit  her 
affections  to  be  sacrificed  at  the  aliar  of  political  calculation. 
She  well  knew  that  domestic  happiness  is  the  best  foundation  for 
public  virtue.  She  felt  that  in  the  tranquillity  of  connubial  en- 
joyment the  heart  has  no  repining  cares  to  interrupt  the  search 
for  truth  —  no  restless  anticipations  or  regrets,  to  turn  the  thoughts 
away  from  active  duty  or  contemplative  preparation.  She  wisely 
asserted  her  own  right  to  choose  for  herself  in  the  most  impor- 
tant action  of  her  life.  The  nation  hailed  and  reverenced  her 
motives.  The  prince  of  her  choice  brought  neither  extent  of 
territory  nor  continental  influence  ;  but  he  brought  an  unsophis- 
ticated mind  —  an  active,  firm,  inquiring,  and  amiable  temper  — 
a  meek  and  affectionate  heart.  Their  tastes  were  alike ;  their 
happiness  was  alike.  In  dignified  retirement  they  lived  calmly 
and  unobtrusively,  in  that  enviable  tranquillity  which  is  so  con- 
genial to  British  feeling.  Their  amusements  were  elegant  and 
simple ;  their  exercises  of  duty  were  habitual  and  uniform.  In 
the  pursuit  of  health  and  of  knowledge,  their  days  passed  awaj 
in  that  serenity  which  devotion  and  benevolence  stimulate;  1  and 
confirmed.  A  glorious  prospect  was  open  to  them  of  passing  the 
summer  of  life  in  the  discipline  of  domestic  virtue,  and  the  au- 
tumn in  a  far  more  extended  exercise  of  the  same  principled 
These  hopes  perished  in  an  hour ! 

Thirty  years  ago,  when,1  "  without  the  slightest  warning,  with- 
1  Robert  Hall's  Funeral  Sermon,  &c. 


CHAP.  XI.]  ABOLITION  OF  SINE  CUKES.  147 

out  the  opportunity  of  a  moment's  immediate  preparation,  in  the 
midst  of  the  deepest  tranquillity,  at  midnight  a  voice  was  heard 
in  the  palace,  not  of  singing-men  and  singing-women,  not  of  rev- 
elry and  mirth,  but  the  cry,  Behold  the  bridegroom  cometh,"  — 
the  nation  first  wept,  and  then  grew  angry.  There  had  been 
neglect,  at  any  rate.  The  greatest  in  the  land  had  been  less 
helped  in  her  need,  it  was  affirmed,  than  the  humblest  peasant- 
wife.  Lord  Eldon  used  to  relate,  that,  after  the  labor  was  over, 
he l  "  went  into  the  room  where  the  surgeons  were  consulting  what 
bulletin  of  the  Princess  they  should  send,  and  they  had  actually 
drawn  one  up,  stating  that  she  was  going  on  as  favorably  as  pos- 
sible, when  Baillie  came  in,  and,  after  reading  it,  he  refused  to 
sign  it,  for  such  was  not  his  opinion.  We  [the  cabinet  ministers] 
returned  to  our  homes  about  two  o'clock  in  the  morning,  and  be- 
fore six  a  messenger  arrived  to  let  us  know  the  Princess  was 
dead."  Sir  Richard  Croft,  against  whom  the  public  odium  was 
chiefly  directed,  became  in  a  few  mouths  after  his  own  self-de- 
stroyer. 

Amongst  the  fears  that  accompanied  the  death  of  the  Princess 
Charlotte,  was  the  apprehension  that  "  a  barren  sceptre  "  might 
pass  through  the  hands  of  the  illustrious  family  that  freed  these 
realms  from  a  despotic  sway.  The  apprehension  was  dissipated 
by  the  subsequent  marriages  of  the  Dukes  of  Clarence,  Kent, 
Cumberland,  and  Cambridge.  It  is  a  remarkable  example  of 
the  vanity  of  human  fears,  that  the  people  who  wept,  as  a  peo- 
ple without  hope,  for  the  bereavement  of  Charlotte  Augusta, 
should  have  realized,  through  her  premature  death,  precisely 
such  a  female  reign,  of  just  and  mild  government,  of  domestic 
virtues,  of  generous  sympathy  with  popular  rights,  of  bold  and 
liberal  em-onrageinent  of  sound  improvement,  as  they  had  asso- 
ciated with  her  career  —  perhaps  more  than  they  had  thought,  in 
that  season  of  disquiet,  could  ever  be  realized  in  a  few  coming 
years. 

In  the  pleasing  record  of  those  years  which  were  years  of 
progress,  we  shall  not  have  to  enumerate  the  year  1817.  It  has 
left  not  the  slightest  trace  of  public  good.  At  the  beginning  of 
the  session,  ministers  sanctioned  the  appointment  of  a  finance 
committee.  In  three  months  the  committee  brought  forward  a 
measure,  for  the  gradual  abolition  of  sinecures,  which 
Lord  Castlereagh  supported,  because  it  would  not  di- 
minish the  inHuence  of  the  crown  ;'2  would  produce  no  large  re- 
duction of  expense ;  but  would  convince  the  people  that  parlia- 
ment was  doing  everything  possible  to  relieve  their  burdens.  It 
appeared  that  savings  were  to  be  effected  by  the  abolition  of  sine- 
cures to  the  amount  of  £5 1 ,000  ;  instead  of  which  the  committee 

l  Lord  Eldon's  Life,  ii.  p.  299.  2  Hansard,  xxxvi.  p.  128,  &c. 


148  HISTORY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [BOOK  L 

recommended  the  substitution  of  a  pension-list  to  the  amount  of 
£42,000.  This  bitter  mockery  of  the  public  expectations  was  a 
new  source  of  discontent. 

The  Roman  Catholic  claims  were  debated  at  great  length  dur- 
ing this  session.     Of  the  debate  on  the  9th  of  May, 

Roman  J* 

Catholic  Mr.  Wilberforce  makes  this  brief  entry  in  his  diary : 
claims.  u  Roman  Catholic  question  decided.  I  would  not 

speak.  Canning  poor  —  Peel  excellent  —  Lord  Castlereagh 
very  good."  The  debate  occupies  a  hundred  columns  of  Han- 
sard's Reports.  We  reserve  for  another  occasion  a  general  view 
of  the  course  of  this  great  question.  The  majority  against  the 
Roman  Catholics,  in  1817,  was  twenty-four. 

From  this  year  we  may  date  the  retrogression  of  the  cause  of 
Pariiamen-  parliamentary  reform,  which  continued  to  go  back,  or 
tary  reform.  stand  still,  as  long  as  the  middle  classes  were  afraid  of 
its  agitation.  Writing  to  a  friend  in  1817,  Mr.  Wilberforce  says : 1 
".I  continue  friendly  to  the  moderate,  gradual,  and  almost  insen- 
sibly operating  parliamentary  reform,  which  was  last  brought 
forward  by  Mr.  Pitt.  I  am  firmly  persuaded  that  at  present  a 
prodigious  majority  of  the  more  intelligent  people  of  this  coun- 
try are  adverse  to  the  measure.  In  my  view,  so  far  from  being 
an  objection  to  the  discussion,  this  is  rather  a  recommenda- 
tion of  it.  But  it  is  a  serious  and  very  strong  objection  to  its 
present  consideration,  that  the  efforts  of  certain  demagogues  have 
had  too  much  success  in  influencing  the  minds  of  the  lowest  of 
the  people  in  several  of  our  manufacturing  districts,  most  falsely 
persuading  them  that  the  evils  under  which  we  at  present  labor 
are  owing  to  the  state  of  our  parliamentary  representation,  and 
that  they  would  be  cured  by  a  parliamentary  reform."  The  rash 
movements  of  the  operative  classes  in  1816  —  their  violent  dec- 
lamations, their  tumultuous  meetings  —  proceeded  in  most  cases 
from  an  ignorant  but  honest  spirit.  They  had  been  taught,  as 
some  demagogues  still  continue  to  teach,  that  all  the  evils  of  civil- 
ization are  political  evils.  A  few  scoundrels,  a  few  spies,  and  a 
few  zealots  of  the  operative  class,  placed  the  weapon  of  alarm 
in  the  hands  of  the  government  of  1817  ;  and,  what  was  more, 
laid  the  foundation  for  those  miserable  conflicts  and  mutual  sus- 
picions, on  the  part  of  the  capitalists  and  the  laborers,  which  are 
still  amongst  the  most  serious  obstacles  to  all  large  mitigations 
of  (he  inequalities  of  society,  however  we  may  all  be  improved 
in  the  common  wish  for  Christian  brotherhood. 

1  Life  of  Wilberforce,  iv.  p.  315. 


CHAP.  XH.]  INDIA.  — THE   PINDARREES.  149 


CHAPTER    XII.1 

THE  period  at  which  we  are  arrived  was  remarkable  for  a 
series  of  achievements  in  India,  under  the  administra- 
tion of  the  Marquess  of  Hastings,  at  that  time  Earl  of 
Moira.  His  lordship  was  nominated  governor-general  on  the 
18th  of  November,  1812,  and,  arriving  in  India,  Lord  Minto  re- 
signed the  government  to  him  on  the  4th  of  October,  1813.  He 
was  obliged  to  attend  almost  immediately  to  matters  of  war,  for 
the  Birmans,  or  Burmese,  continued  to  trouble  one  of  the  fron- 
tiers of  our  empire,  while  the  Nepanlese  made  encroachments  on 
another.  The  Birmans  were  brought  to  reason  for  the  present ; 
but  the  Nepaulese  spurned  negotiation,  and  were  to  be  reduced 
only  by  force.  The  Goorkhas,  who  domineered  over  a  great 
part  of  Nepaul,  retained  that  passion  for  war  and  conquest  to 
which  they  owed  their  recently  established  dominion,  and  by 
which  they  hoped  to  extend  their  empire  in  Hindustan.  Their 
far  extended  frontier  pressed  everywhere  upon  the  territories  of 
the  Company,  or  the  territory  of  the  Company's  allies  or  depend- 
ants ;  and  except  in  the  neighborhood  of  our  military  stations, 
it  was  found  difficult  or  almost  impossible  to  check  the  border- 
forays  of  the  Nepaulese,  or  the  quarrels  that  were  constantly 
breaking  out.  In  the  month  of  May,  1814,  while  some  negotia- 
tions were  still  pending,  the  Nepaulese  treacherously  attacked 
and  murdered  all  the  police-officers  stationed  in  Bootwul.  The 
Earl  of  Moira  determined  to  send  armies  to  deal  with  these 
troublesome  neighbors,  and,  after  two  campaigns,  they  were  ef- 
fectually subdued. 

In  the  meanwhile  our  Indian  armies  were  drawn  into  the  field 
by  new  enemies.     The  Pindarrees  were  not  a  distinc-  pimiarree 
tive  race,  but  a  numerous  class  of  men  of  different   war- 
races,  religions,  and  habits,  gradually  associating  and  assimilated 
by  a  common  pursuit.     They  were  all  horsemen  and  all  robbers. 
Their  name  first  occurs  in  Indian  history  about  the  end  of  the 
seventeenth  century.     From  obscure  freebooters  they  rose  into 
sufficient   consequence   to  be   deemed  useful  auxiliaries  by  the 

1  This  chapter  is  abridged  from  Mr.  MacFarlane's  able  work,  "  Our  Indian 
Empire." 


150  mSTORY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [BOOK  I. 

different  Mahratta  powers,  whose  desultory  mode  of  warfare  was 
suited  to  their  own  habits.      From  their  preceding  or  accompany- 
ing Mahratta  armies,  the  Pindarrees  became  occasionally  con- 
founded with  the  Mahrattas,  though  they  were  always  considered 
by  the  latter  as  essentially  distinct,  and  so  immeasurably  inferior 
as  not  to  be  allowed  to  eat  with  them,  or  even  to  be  seated  in 
their   presence.     Occasionally    the   Mahratta   rulers   purchased 
their  aid  by  grants  of  land,  or  by  a  tacit  admission  of  their  right 
to  possess  tracts  which  they  had  already  usurped.1     But  the  more 
4isual  price  paid  for  their  assistance  was  the  privilege  of  plunder- 
ing, even  beyond  the  ordinary  license  given  to  a  MahnUta  army. 
At  times  some  of  their  durras  acted  for  one  Mahratta  chief,  and 
some  on  the  opposite  side  for  another   Mahratta  chief;  and  it 
occasionally  happened  that  all  the   durras   leagued   themselves 
against  the  whole  Mahratta  confederacy,  plundering  the  territo- 
ries of  the  Peishwa,  Scindia,  the  Nagpoor  Rajah,  &c.,  indiscrim- 
inately.    As   the    Pindarree   chiefs   acquired   reputation,    their 
claims  to  the  services  of  their  adherents  became  hereditary,  and 
were  transmitted  to  their  descendants.     Gangs  and  tribes  were 
cemented  in  federal  union,  and  common  motives  of  action  led  to 
the   establishment   of  a  community  of  interest  throughout  the 
whole  of  this  community  of  robbers.     The  very  looseness  of  the 
composition  of  their  union  was  favorable  to  its   increase,  as  it 
admitted  all  castes  and  all  faiths,  and  offered  a  ready  refuge  to 
poverty,  indolence,  and  crime  —  to  all  that  was  floating  and  un- 
attached in  the  frequently  revolutionized  communities  of  Central 
India.     What  their  numbers  were  could  at  no  time  be  correctly 
estimated;  they  varied   with   circumstances,  being   thinned   by 
failure,  and  swelled  by  success.     u  It  is   also  to  be  observed," 
says  Sir  John  Malcolm,  "  that   the    Pindarrees  were   fed   and 
nourished  by  the  very  miseries  they  created  ;  for,  as  their  preda- 
tory invasions  extended,  property  became   insecure,  and    those 
who  were  ruined  by  their  depredations  were  afterwards  compelled 
to  have  recourse  to  a  life  of  violence,  as  the  onlv  means  of  sub- 
sistence left  them.     They  joined  the  stream  which  they  could 
not  withstand,  and  endeavored  to  redeem  their  own  losses  by  the 
plunder  of  others."     The  strategy  of  these  overgrown  bodies  of 
banditti  will  show  at  once  how  difficult  it  was  either  to  suppress 
them  or  intercept  them.     "  When  they  set  out 2  on  an  expedition, 
they  placed  themselves  under  the  guidance  of  one  or  more  chosen 
leaders,  called  lubburiahs,  who  were  selected  on  account  of  their 
knowledge  of  the  country  that  it  was  meant  to  plunder.     The 
Pindarrees  were  encumbered  neither  with  tents  nor  baggage  ; 
each  horseman  carried  a  few  cakes  of  bread  for  his  own  subsist- 
ence, and  some  feeds  of  grain  for  his  horse.     The  party,  which 
1  Sir  John  Malcolm,  Memoir  of  Central  India.  2  Sir  John  Malcolm. 


CHAP.  XII.]       CHEETOO,  A  PINDARREE   CHIEF.  151 

usually  consisted  of  two  or  three  thousand  good  horse,  with  a 
proportion  of  mounted  followers,  advanced  at  the  rapid  rate  o1' 
forty  or  fifty  miles  a  day,  turning  neither  to  the  right  nor  left  till 
they  arrived  at  their  place  of  destination.  They  then  divided 
and  made  a  sweep  of  all  the  cattle  and  property  they  could  find, 
committing  at  the  same  time  the  most  horrid  atrocities,  and  de- 
stroying what  they  could  not  carry  away.  They  trusted  to  the 
secrecy  and  suddenness  of  the  irruption  for  avoiding  those  who 
guarded  the  frontiers  of  the  countries  they  invaded  ;  and  before 
a  force  could  be  brought  against  them,  they  were  on  their  return. 
Their  chief  strength  lay  in  their  being  intangible.  If  pursued, 
they  made  marches  of  extraordinary  length,  —  sometimes  up- 
wards of  sixty  miles,  —  by  roads  almost  impracticable  for  regu- 
lar troops.  If  overtaken,  they  dispersed,  and  reassembled  at  an 
appointed  rendezvous ;  if  followed  to  the  country  from  which 
they  issued,  they  broke  into  small  parties.  Their  wealth,  their 
booty,  and  their  families,  were  scattered  over  a  wide  region,  in 
which  they  found  protection  amid  the  mountains  and  in  the  fast- 
nesses belonging  to  themselves,  or  to  those  with  whom  they  were 
either  openly  or  secretly  connected  ;  but  nowhere  did  they  pre- 
sent any  point  of  attack ;  and  the  defeat  of  a  party,  the  destruc- 
tion of  one  of  their  cantonments,  or  the  temporary  occupation  of 
some  of  their  strongholds,  produced  no  effect  beyond  the  ruin  of 
an  individual  freebooter,  whose  place  was  instantly  supplied  by 
another,  generally  of  more  desperate  fortune,  and,  therefore, 
more  eager  for  enterprise."  They  never  fought  when  they  could 
run  away  ;  they  considered  it  wisdom  to  plunder  and  fly,  but  folly 
to  stay  and  fight.  Even  when  acting  with  the  Mahrattas  as 
auxiliaries  their  object  was  plunder,  not  war.  They  went  before, 
indeed,  but  it  was  only  by  surprise  or  in  defenceless  provinces  ; 
they  were,  from  their  very  origin,  the  scavengers  of  the  Mahrat- 
tas ;  and  though  in  the  van,  they  had  little  more  pretension  to 
martial  conduct  or  valor  than  had  the  birds  and  beasts  of  prey 
that  fol  owed  in  their  ami  their  allies'  rear.  Some  of  their  chiefs, 
however,  united  to  the  qualities  so  essential  to  their  profession  — 
activity,  running,  ready  enterprise,  presence  of  mind,  and  promp- 
titude of  resources  —  a  wonderful  strength  of  mind,  or  it  might 
be  apathy,  in  bearing  the  reverses  of  fortune  and  the  privations 
of  their  lot.  Foremost  among  these  chiefs  was  Cheetoo.  This 
man  first  attracted  the  attention  of  the  English  towards  the  end 
of  1806,  when,  raising  himself  on  the  temporary  ruin  of  Kureem, 
another  Pindarree  chief,  who  had  incurred  the  displeasure  of  one 
of  the  Mahratta  potentates,  and  had  been  inveigled  and  made 
prisoner,  he  united  the  durras  or  bands  of  many  other  leaders  under 
his  own  standard,  and  prepared  to  commit  depredations  on  an  un- 
precedentedly  grand  scale.  Numerous  and  profitable  to  himself, 


152  HISTORY  OF   THE  PEACE.  [Boon  I. 

and  altogether  ruinous  to  the  inhabitants  of  many  wide  districts 
of  Hiridostan,  were  the  expeditions  undertaken  by  Cheetoo  on 
his  own  account.  But  in  1811  the  captive  Pindarree,  Kureem, 
purchasing  his  liberty  from  the  Mahrattas,  returned  to  the  scenes 
of  his  former  power,  and  soon  obtained  his;  former  supremacy. 
To  make  up  for  lost  time,  and  to  restore  his  reputation  among 
the  robbers,  Kureem  laid  his  plans  to  effect  a  general  combina- 
tion of  all  the  Pindarree  bands,  for  a  predatory  expedition  more 
extensive  than  any  that  had  hitherto  been  made.  Cheetoo  was 
obliged  to  follow  the  example  of  the  majority  of  his  fellow- 
chiefs;  and  at  the  great  gathering  of  1811,  his  durra  made  part 
of  25,000  cava'ry  of  all  descriptions,  that  were  ready,  under  the 
command  of  Kureem,  to  march  against  and  plunder  the  city  of 
Nagpoor,  the  large  and  populous  capital  of  the  Boonsla  Mahrat- 
tas.  But  Cheetoo,  who  continued  to  hate  Kureem  as  a  rival, 
plotted  against  him,  sold  himself  to  his  enemies,  and  went  over 
to  them  with  all  his  durra.  Not  long  after  this  he  entirely  ruined 
Kureem,  and  obliged  him  to  flee  with  his  diminished  adherents 
to  a  distant  country.  Cheetoo  again  shone  forth  on  his  rival's 
eclipse,  and  at  his  cantonment  near  Nemawur,  in  the  province  of 
Malwah,  on  the  north  bank  of  the  Nerbudda,  no  fewer  than 
15,000  horse  annually  assembled  to  issue  forth  to  plunder.  As 
the  territories  of  the  Company  and  those  of  its  protected  allies 
offered  the  richest  booty,  the  eyes  of  the  Pindarrees  were  always 
bent  in  that  direction.1  This  imposed  the  necessity  of  constant 
vigilance  along  the  whole  extent  of  the  southwest  frontier  of 
the  Bengal  presidency ;  while,  for  the  security  of  the  Deccan, 
the  subsidiary  forces  of  the  Nizam  and  Peishwa  were  annually 
obliged  to  move  to  the  frontiers  of  their  respective  territories ; 
and  notwithstanding  all  these  precautions,  those  states  were  con- 
stantly penetrated  and  overrun  by  the  marauders. 

The  reverses  and  losses  sustained  in  the  first  campaign  in 
Nepaul,  in  1814,  encouraged  the  Pindarrees.  In  October,  1815, 
when  our  main  army  was  fully  occupied  in  forcing  the  stockades 
of  the  Goorkhas,  Cheetoo  crossed  the  Nerbudda  with  nearly 
8000  of  his  Pindarrees.  On  the  southern  side  of  the  river  they 
broke  into  two  parties  and  took  opposite  routes.  Major  Fraser, 
with  300  sepoys  and  100  irregular  native  horse,  surprised  one  of 
the  parties  in  a  bivouac,  and  made  them  suffer  some  loss  before 
they  could  mount,  gallop  off,  and  disperse.  But  tin's  did  not 
deter  them  from  continuing  their  depredations  as  far  as  the  black 
river,  the  Krishna  or  Kistna.  The  other  party,  which  had  met 
with  no  such  molestation,  traversed  the  whole  of  the  territory  of 
our  ally  the  Nizam  of  the  Deccan,  from  north  to  south,  and  also 

i  Henry  T.  Prinsep's    Political   and   Military  Transactions  in  India  during 
the  Administration  of  the  Marquis  of  Hastings. 


CHAP.  XIL]     RAVAGES   OF   THE   PINDARREES.  153 

appeared  on  the  banks  of  the  Kistna.  The  territories  of  our 
Madras  presidency  lay  on  the  other  side  of  the  river,  and  were 
saved  from  devastation  only  by  the  fortuitous  circumstance  of 
the  river's  continuin<r  not  fordable  so  unusually  late  in  the  sea- 
son as  the  20th  of  November.  "  Finding  the  Kistna  impassa- 
ble,1 the  freebooters  took  a  turn  eastward,  plundering  the  coun- 
try for  several  miles  along  its  populous  and  fertile  banks,  and 
committing  every  kind  of  enormity.  On  approaching  the  fron- 
tier of  Masulipatam,  they  shaped  their  course  northward,  and 
returned  along  the  line  of  the  Godavouree  (Godavery)  and 
Whurdah.  passing  to  the  east  of  all  Colonel  Do\  eton's  positions, 
and  making  good  their  route  to  Nemawur  (Qheetoo'a  head-quar- 
ters), with  an  immense  booty  collected  in  the  Nizam's  dominions, 
and  with  utter  impunity."  Elated  by  his  success,  Cheetoo 
planned  and  proclaimed  a  second  lubbur,  or  raid,  immediately 
upon  the  return  of  the  first.  The  Pindarrees  again  flocked  in 
from  every  side  to  join  in  it;  and  by  the  oth  nf  February,  1816, 
10,000  horsemen  had  again  crossed  the  Nerbudda  from  Nemawur. 
This  time,  the  Company's  territories  did  not  escape.  On  the 
10th  of  March,  leaving  plundered  and  burning  villages  in  their 
rear,  the  Pindarrees  appeared  on  the  western  frontier  of  the 
district  of  Masulipatam,  und*-r  the  Madras  presidency.  From 
this  point  they  pressed  southward.  On  the  llth  they  made  a 
march  of  thirty-three  miles,  plundered  seventy-two  villages,  and 
committed  the  most  horrid  cruelties  upon  the  inoffensive  and 
helpless  villagers.  On  the  next  day  they  destroyed  fifty-four 
villages,  marched  thirty-eight  nrles,  and  arrived  at  the  civil  sta- 
tion of  Gunto  >r.  Here  they  plundered  a  considerable  part  of 
the  town,  and  the  houses  of  all  the  civil  officers;  but,  steady  to 
their  system  of  never  risking  life  or  limb  in  battle,  they  shrunk 
from  the  collector's  office,  where  the  government  treasure  and 
the  persons  of  the  British  residents  were  protected  by  a  handful 
of  sepoys  and  invalids.  The  robbers  went  off  as  they  came, 
suddenly  and  noiselessly.  That  night  there  was  not  one  of  them 
to  be  seen  in  the  neighborhood  ;  and  before  the  next  day  closed, 
they  were  more  than  fifty  miles  from  Guntoor,  looking  westward 
for  more  defenceless  villages.  They  swept  through  the  Kirpah 
or  Cuddapah  district,  and,  after  being  twelve  days  within  the 
Company's  frontier,  they  recrossed  the  Kistna.  A  squadron  of 
native  cavalry  belonging  to  the  Madras  establishment  reached  the 
opposite  bank  of  the  Kistna  just  after  they  had  made  good  th:-ir 
passage.  Further  to  the  west  there  were  numerous  detachments 
of  the  Company's  troops  scouring  the  country  in  all  directions, 
yet  the  plunderers  escaped  without  the  least  brush.  Shortly  after 
recrossing  the  Kistna,  the  marauders  broke  up  into  separate 
i  H.  T.  Prinsop. 


154  HISTORY   OF  THE  PEACE.  [BOOK  I. 

bodies.  The  greater  part  moved  along  the  north  bank  of  the 
Kistna,  passing  south  of  Hydrabad,  until  they  approached  the 
Peishwa's  dominions.  Then,  turning  short  to  the  north,  they 
retraced  their  steps  to  the  Nerbudda,  in  several  divisions  and  by 
various  routes.  Colonel  Doveton  came  close  up  with  one  of  the 
divisions  as  it  was  passing  a  ghaut,  but  still  the  robbers  escaped 
untouched.  Another  and  a  larger  body  was  equally  fortunate  in 
escaping  from  the  colonel,  who  had  obtained  from  a  Pindarree 
prisoner  a  clue  to  its  movements,  and  who  had  made  sure  of  cut- 
ting it  up.  It  was  soon  afterwards  ascertained  that  nearly  the 
whole  of  these  Pindarrees  who  had  passed  the  Nerbudda  on  the 
5th  of  February,  had  recrossed  it  before  the  17th  of  May,  bring- 
ing a  second  immense  harvest  of  booty  to  Nemawur  within  the 
year.  It  was  ascertained  by  a  commission  appointed  for  the  ex- 
press purpose  of  the  investigation,  that,  during  the  twelve  days 
the  ferocious  banditti  remained  within  the  Company's  frontiers, 
three  hundred  and  thirty-nine  villages  had  been  plundered,  one 
hundred  and  eighty-two  individuals  put  to  a  cruel  death,  five 
hundred  and  five  severely  wounded,  and  no  less  than  three 
thousand  six  hundred  and  three  subjected  to  different  kinds  of 
torture. 

The  governor-general  obtained  certain  information  that  the 
Peishwa,  Scindia,  and  other  Mahratta  potentates  were  in  close 
and  friendly  correspondence  with  the  robbers,  and  that  Mahratta 
agents  had  visited  Cheetoo's  cantonme-nt  at  Nemawur,  just  before 
the  last  raid  was  undertaken ;  and  there  was  every  ground  for 
believing  that  the  new  Mahratta  confederacy  contemplated  an 
invasion  of  our  territories  while  our  main  army  was  engaged  in 
Nepaul,  and  the  rest  of  our  troops  in  the  field  occupied  in  an  ex- 
hausting and  useless  pursuit  of  the  Pindarrees.  His  lordship, 
who  saw  the  Nepaul  war  brought  to  an  honorable  and  advan- 
tageous conclusion,  at  the  very  moment  when  both  the  Mahrattas 
and  the  Pindarrees  were  confidently  calculating  on  its  duration, 
was  most  eager  to  employ  the  unreduced  strength  of  his  armies 
in  the  accomplishment  of  the  important  object  of  securing  the 
peace  of  Central  India  by  the  extirpation  of  the  robbers.  He 
had  written  for  the  sanction  of  the  home  authorities,  and  had 
made  a  second  strong  representation  of  the  horrors  to  which  the 
country  was  exposed ;  but  the  sanction  he  required  before  com- 
mencing operations  on  a  grand  scale  had  not  yet  arrived.  A 
large  part  of  the  Bengal  army  was,  however,  kept  in  advanced 
cantonments,  ready  to  take  the  field  at  any  moment.  The  gov- 
ernor-general at  length  received  the  sanction  of  the  home  author- 
ities to  his  scheme  for  breaking  up  the  confederacy  and  power  of 
those  banditti. 

By  the  end  of  October,  1816,  Lieutenant-Colonel  Walker  took 


CHAP.  XII.]  PINDARREE  WAK.  155 

up  a  defensive  line  on  the  southern  bank  of  the  Nerbudda,  with 
the  main  body  of  the  subsidiary  force  which  the  Company  had 
sent  into  Najrpoor.  This  defensive  line,  being  nearly  one  hun- 
dred and  fifty  miles  in  length,  was  loose  and  weak ;  but  the  first 
appearance  of  a  British  army  in  the  valley  of  the  Nerbudda 
spread  consternation  among  the  robbers,  and  induced  Cheetoo  to 
prepare  to  quit  the  northern  bank  of  that  river,  and  cross  the 
mountains  into  Malwah.  Perceiving,  however,  that  the  troops 
did  not  cross  the  Nerbudda,  the  Pindarrees  recovered  confidence  ; 
and  on  the  4th  of  November  they  resolved  to  push  small  parties 
between  Colonel  Walker's  posts  and  round  his  fianks  ;  and  a 
party  crossed  the  river,  and  then  dividing  into  two,  took  different 
directions.  Colonel  Walker,  in  attempting  to  intercept  one  of 
the  divisions,  unexpectedly  fell  upon  the  other  as  it  was  bivouack- 
ing in  a  jungle  ;  he  inflicted  some  loss  ;  but  the  nimble  robbers 
were  soon  in  the  saddle,  and  before  long  they  had  n-crossed  the 
river.  On  the  13th  of  November  all  the  durras  were  in  motion. 
Cheetoo  had  discovered  that  Walker's  cavalry  was  all  on  his 
left  flank,  and  he  therefore  threw  forward  more  than  five  thou- 
sand of  his  well-mounted  thieves  to  turn  Walker's  right  flank. 
This  band,  which  appears  to  have  been  followed  by  others,  crossed 
the  river  in  sight  of  the  infantry  post  on  the  extreme  right  of 
our  line,  and  then  dashed  on  with  a  rapidity  which  left  our  in- 
fantry no  chance  of  stopping  or  harassing  their  march.  When 
collected  on  the  southern  side  of  the  Nerbudda,  the  Pindarrees 
separated  into  two  great  bodies.  One  swept  due  east,  through 
forests  and  over  mountains,  and  fell  unexpectedly  upon  the  Com- 
pany's district  of  Ganjam,  the  northernmost  frontier  of  the  five 
Ci  rears,  with  the  evident  intention  of  proceeding  to  Cuttack  and 
Juggernaut,  to  plunder  the  rich  stronghold  of  Hindoo  supersti- 
tion, to  carry  off  the  idols  and  the  votive-offerings  and  rich  dona- 
tions of  the  pilgrims  and  devotees.  But  this  lubbur  was  met  by 
a  small  body  of  the  Company's  troops  almost  as  soon  as  it  entered 
Ganjam,  and  was  driven  back  with  considerable  loss.  The  other 
lubbur,  which  had  gone  off  to  the  southward,  rushed  into  the 
Nizam's  territory  before  Colonel  Doveton  could  come  up  with  it. 
It  then  marched  leisurely  along,  plundering  and  destroying,  until  it 
came  near  to  the  town  of  Beeder,  the  capital  of  a  province  of  the 
Deccan,  and  about  seventy-three  miles  northwest  from  Hydrabad. 
Here  it  came  to  a  halt,  and  its  chiefs  disagreed  as  to  the  further 
course  which  ought  to  be  pursued.  While  the  leaders  were  in 
this  state  of  indecision,  Major  Macdowall,  who  had  been  detached 
from  Hydrabad,  fell  upon  the  lubbur  by  night  with  the  van 
party  of  his  light  troops,  and  cut  it  up  completely,  although  it 
was  six  thousand  strong,  and  the  first  attack  made  by  a  mere  hand- 
ful of  light  cavalry.  The  robbers  abandoned  most  of  their  horses 


156  HISTORY   OF   THE  PEACE.  [BOOK  I. 

and  the  greater  part  of  their  booty,  d'spersed  themselves  over  the 
country,  ami  thought  of  nothing  but  tlieir  personal  safety,  and  of 
the  means  of  returning  to  the  northern  side  of  the  Nerbudda. 
But  one  leader,  named  Sheik  Dulloo,  indignant  at  the  want  of 
energv  and  concert  betrayed  by  those  who  had  the  chief  com- 
mand, had  abandoned  this  lubbur  altogether  a  few  days  before 
Macdowall's  exploit,  and  had  gone  off  with  from  three  to  five 
hundred  Pindarrees  to  act  for  himself.  He  dashed  across  the 
Peishwa's  territory,  descended  into  the  Concan.  and  thence  shaped 
his  course  due  north,  plundering  the  western  shores  of  India, 
from  the  17th  to  the  21st  degree  of  north  latitude,  and  returning 
by  the  valley  of  the  Taptee,  and  the  route  of  Burhaunpore,  the 
capital  of  the  Khaudeish  province  of  the  Deccan.  This  was  the 
only  lubbur  that  met  with  any  success  this  season.  The  only 
loss  it  sustained  from  British  troops  was  on  its  return  to  the  Ner- 
budda, in  the  following  March.  Here  She;k  Dulloo  and  his 
people  were  within  a  few  miles  of  home,  or  of  Cheetoo's  canton- 
ment ;  but  they  found  the  ford  by  which  they  had  hoped  to  cross 
the  river,  guarded  by  a  redoubt  occupied  by  a  small  party  of  our 
sepoys  Several  of  the  robbers  were  shot  in  attempting  to  dasli 
across ;  but  the  sheik  himself,  with  his  main  body  and  best- 
mounted  followers,  retiring  from  the  ford,  lx>ldly  swam  the  river 
lower  down,  though  not  without  a  further  loss  of  men  and  horses. 
Those  who  had  worse  horses  or  less  courage  dispersed,  and  fled 
into  the  jungle  on  the  English  side  of  the  Nerbudda,  where  the 
greater  part  of  them  were  cut  off  by  the  wild  inhabitants  of  the 
country.  By  the  various  accidents  of  flood  and  fire,  more  than 
one  half  of  those  who  had  followed  Sheik  Dulloo  perished ; *  but 
the  rest  reached  Cheetoo's  durra  with  a  rich  booty  in  their  sad- 
dles. The  sheik's  fame  waxed  great ;  his  daring  lubbur  and  his 
marvellous  return  became  the  admired  theme  of  the  whole 
Pindarree  world. 

Two  or  three  other  lubburs  had  contrived  to  cross  the  Ner- 
budda by  passing  between  the  distant  posts  of  Colonel  Walker's 
line,  or  by  turning  that  line  ;  but  they  met  with  nothing  except 
hard  blows  and  disappointment.  One  of  them  was  cut  to  pieces 
by  the  4th  Madras  native  cavalry,  led  on  by  Major  Lushington. 
Making  a  forced  march  of  more  than  fifty  miles,  the  greater  part 
by  night,  Lushington  surprised  the  Pindarrees  as  they  were  cook- 
ing and  eating,  and  presently  strewed  the  field  with  some  seven 
or  eight  hundred  of  their  dead  bodies.  As  the  ground  was  open, 
the  Madras  cavalry  pursued  with  good  effect.  The  Ganjam  lub- 
bur was  almost  annihilated  on  its  rapid  return  homeward  ;  and 
as  the  different  ghauts  and  fords  by  which  they  must  pass  in 
order  to  get  to  the  north  bank  of  the  Nerbudda  were  by  degrees 
i  H.  T.  Priusep. 


CHAP.  XII.]  PINDARREE   WAR.  157 

all  guarded,  very  few  of  the  remnants  of  the  other  shattered 
lubburs  ever  reached  their  homes.  Hosts  of  them  were  cut  off 
by  our  sepoys,  and  by  the  people  whom  they  had  plundered  in 
their  advance.  They  had  been  continually  fleeing  before  a  hand- 
ful of  men,  and  had  been  beaten  every  time  they  had  been  met 
with.  Still,  however,  their  depredations  during  this  campaign  or 
season  of  1816-17  had  embraced  a  more  ample  expanse  of  terri- 
tory than  had  ever  before  been  attempted,  extending  from  shore 
to  shore  of  the  peninsula  of  India,  and  including  all  the  inter- 
nu-diate  provinces  they  had  omitted  the  preceding  year. 

By  this  time  it  was  very  completely  demonstrated  that  station- 
ary posts  of  defence  could  not  prevent  the  Pindarrees  from  cross- 
ing the  Nerbudda  and  getting  into  our  territories  ;  and  that  it 
would  not  be  possible  to  deal  properly  with  those  plunderers  and 
murderers,  unless  our  troops  advanced  into  the  country  north  of 
the  Nerbudda,  to  the  "  procreaut  cradle  "  of  the  infamous  race. 

During  the  rains  of  this  year,  the  Pindarrees,  well  knowing  that 
the  English  were  coining  against  them  into  the  regions  beyond 
the  Nerbudda,  made  great  efforts  to  recruit  their  durras,  and  to 
concert  some  general  plan  of  defence.  But  disagreements  broke 
out  among  the  chiefs,  particularly  between  Cheetoo  and  his  old 
rival  Kureem,  and  no  consistent  plan  could  be  formed.  Their 
superstitions  were  alarmed  by  evil  omens,  such  as  a  great  fire 
that  broke  out  in  Kureem's  camp  in  the  month  of  September, 
and  destroyed  all  the  valuables  of  his  durra.  Generally,  however, 
the  Pindarrees  relief,  first  on  their  own  rapidity  of  movement, 
and  next  on  the  potency  of  the  hostile  league  which  they  knew 
to  be  forming  among  the  Mahruttas  against  the  English.  When 
the  rains  were  over,  they  made  some  very  unsuccessful  attempts 
to  break  into  our  territories.  They  were  everywhere  headed 
back  ;  and  they  were  soon  presse  1  and  pursued,  and  driven  from 
their  haunts  beyond  the  Nerbudda  by  the  several  corps  of  Major- 
General  Marshall  and  Colonel  Sir  John  Malcolm.  The  last- 
named  officer,  who  has  wriiten  the  best  account  of  the  Pindnrrees, 
and  who  had  the  most  active  share  in  the  operations  which  de- 
stroyed them,  had  been  absent  in  England,  and  had  returned  just 
in  time  to  take  the  command  of  one  of  the  corps  of  the  Marquess 
of  Hastings's  army.  Malcolm,  being  informed  of  Cheetoo's 
flight  to  the  westward,  resolved  to  follow  him,  as  the  most  able 
and  dangerous  of  the  robbers ;  and  he  accordingly  marched  as 
far  as  Agur.  Here  he  learned  that  Cheetoo  had  pitched  his 
camp  close  to  that  of  the  liolkar  Mahrattas ;  that  he  had  been 
received  with  friendship  and  distinction  ;  and  that  those  Mahrat- 
tas were  fully  determined  to  support  the  robber,  and  to  oppose 
the  operations  of  the  British.  They  had  just  received  from  the 
Peishwa  an  advance  of  a  lac  and  sixty  thousand  rupees.  Upon 


158  HISTORY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [BOOK  L 

this  intelligence  Sir  John  Malcolm  fell  back  to  the  neighborhood 
of  Oojein,  a  town  of  great  celebrity  in  Malwah,  where  another 
corps  d'armee  was  collected  under  the  command  of  Sir  Thomas 
Hislop.  While  these  forces  lay  at  Oojein.  another  revolu- 
tion and  murder  took  place  in  the  Holkar  camp.  The  young 
heir  to  the  musnud  was  enticed  away  from  the  tent  in  which  he 
was  playing,  and  his  mother,  who  was  acting  as  regent,  w  as  - 
at  night  and  beheaded,  as  a  traitress  sold  to  the  English.  Hav- 
ing done  these  deeds,  the  Patan  chiefs  became  clamorous  lor 
battle ;  and  the  whole  Holkar  army,  advancing  rapidly,  plun- 
dered part  of  the  English  baggage.  The  next  day.  the  21st  of 
December,  1817,  they  met  their  reward  in  the  bloody  battle  of 
Maheidpoor.  There,  strongly  posted  on  the  banks  of  the  Sepra 
River  —  into  whose  waters  they  had  thrown  the  headless  body 
of  the  regent  —  they  were  beaten,  bayoneted,  cut  to  pieces,  de- 
prived of  all  their  artillery,  amounting  to  seventy  pieces,  and  of 
everything  that  gave  them  the  character  of  an  army.  The  rem- 
nant of  their  force  fled  to  the  large  walled  town  of  Ram  poo  ra,  in 
the  heart  of  the  province  of  Malwah.  Sir  John  Malcolm  form  -d 
the  plan  of  the  battle,  and  headed  the  assault  on  the  left  flank 
of  the  enemy.  Lieutenants-Colonel  Scott,  Macdowall,  and  Rus- 
sell. Major  James  L.  Lushington,  and  other  officers,  greatly  dis- 
tinguished themselves  in  the. action.  The  British  casualties  were 
unusually  severe,  amounting  to  174'  killed  and  604  wounded. 
Among  the  wounded  were  35  officers,  of  whom  15  were  severely 
injured.  In  the  pursuit,  which  w;is  continued  by  Sir  John  Mal- 
colm and  Captain  Grant  along  both  banks  of  the  river  Sepra, 
immense  booty  was  obtained,  including  elephants,  some  hundreds 
of  camels,  &c. 

Sir  John  Malcolm  advanced  rapidly  towards  the  capital  of  the 
Holkars,  being  joined  on  the  way  by  the  Bombay  army  from 
Gujerat,  under  the  orders  of  Major-General  Sir  William  Keir. 
Those  Mahrattas  now  agreed  to  and  hastily  concluded  a  treaty 
of  peace,  placing  their  territories  under  British  protection,  ami 
surrendering  in  perpetuity  to  the  Company  various  districts,  forts, 
and  gh;iuts.  The  treaty  was  scarcely  concluded  ere  some  of  the 
Patan  chiefs  attempted  to  break  it ;  but  these  desperadoes  were 
defeated,  and  most;  of  their  adherents  slaughtered,  in  Ranv>oora, 
by  some  detachments  of  infantry  and  cavalry  under  General 
Brown.  A  few  more  marches,  and  two  or  three  stormings  of  forts, 
reduced  the  whole  of  the  country  of  the  Holk-tr  Mahrattas  to  a 
state  of  obedience.  These  rapid  successes  k^pt  Scindia  steady  to 
the  treaty  which  he  had  recently  concluded,  and  deprived  the 
wandering  Peishwa  of  almost  his  last  hope.  They  also  enabled 
our  troops  to  follow  the  Pindarr.-es,  who  were  no-v  flying  in  all 
directions,  like  sea-fowl  in  a  stornu  Some  of  Cheetoo's  durra 


CHAP.  XII.]     EXTIRPATION  OF   THE  BOBBERS.  159 

had  followed  the  Patan  chiefs  to  Makeidpoor ;  but  after  our  vic- 
tory there,  Cheetoo  fled  to  shift  for  himself,  seeing  that  no  aid 
was  to  be  expected  from  the  Mahrattas.  He  was  closely  fo'lowed 
by  the  Gujerat  army  of  Sir  William  Keir,  who  surprised  him 
and  cut  up  part  of  his  durra  in  the  neighborhood  of  Satoolla. 
Harassed  by  the  activity  of  Sir  William's  pursuit,  and  finding 
that  other  corps  were  closing  fast  round  them,  the  marauders  en- 
deavored to  retrace  their  steps  to  their  old  haunts  in  the  valley 
of  the  Nerbudda,  and  in  parts  of  Malwah.  Other  chiefs  failed, 
and  were  cut  up  in  the  attempt ;  but  Cheetoo  succeeded  in  baf- 
fling every  effort  made  to  intercept  him  or  overtake  him,  and 
effected  his  object  by  penetrating  through  a  most  difficult  coun'ry. 
He  suddenly  reappeared  in  Malwah,  in  the  neighborhood  of  the 
ancient  city  of  Dhar,  situated  among  rocks,  forests,  and  the 
sources  of  rivers ;  but  his  extraordinary  march  had  cost  him  all 
his  baggage  and  most  of  his  horses.  He  was  now  lost  sight  of 
for  some  time ;  during  which  the  best  of  his  fellow-chiefs,  with 
their  durras,  were  extirpated  in  other  parts.  At  last  his  lair 
was  discovered,  and  on  the  night  of  the  25th  of  January,  1818. 
a  strong  party  of  the  British  came  upon  him,  and  utterly  broke 
up  his  band.  The  hill-robbers  of  Malwah,  the  Bheels  and  Gras- 
si-as,  were  encouraged  to  plunder  and  destroy  the  fugitives,  and 
are  said  to  have  executed  the  commission  very  zealously.  Chee- 
too, however,  escaped  Bheels  and  Grasseas,  as  he  had  so  often 
the  English,  and  for  a  short  time  wandered  and  skulked  aboul 
Malwah  with  some  two  hundred  followers.  When  in  this  state 
of  hopeless  misery,  he  was  often  advised  by  some  of  his  followers 
to,  surrender  to  the  English,  and  trust  to  their  mercy.  He  was 
possessed,  however,  by  the  dreadful  idea,  that  the  English  would 
transport  him  beyond  the  sea,  and  this  was  more  hideous  to  him 
than  death.  These  followers,  who  all,  one  after  another,  came 
in  and  obtained  pardon,1  related  that  during  their  captain's  short 
and  miserable  sleep  at  this  period,  he  used  continually  to  murmur, 
"  Kala  Panee  !  Kala  Panee  ! "  —  The  black  sea  !  oh,  the  black 
sea ! 

At  this  conjuncture  it  struck  Cheetoo  that  possibly  the  Nabob 
of  Bhopal  might  make  terms  for  him  and  the  remnant  of  his 
durra  with  the  English ;  and  rapidly  acting  on  the  idea,  he  sud- 
denly entered  the  c;imp  of  that  prince.  But  when  lie  learned 
that  the  Nabob  could  offer  or  promise  nothing  beyond  a  slender 
personal  maintenance  in  some  remote  corner  of  India,  he  de- 
camped as  suddenly  as  he  had  come.  While  he  stayed,  his 
horses  were  constantly  saddled,  and  his  men  slept  with  the  bridles 
in  their  hands,  ready  to  fly  instantly.  Preparations  were  making 
for  the  purpose  of  seizing  him  the  very  night  he  went  off  from 
i  Sir  John  Malcolm. 


160  HISTORY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [BOOK  L 

the  Bhopal  camp.  Though  he  got  safely  off,  he  was  presently 
pursued  by  the  Nabob's  people,  and  by  parties  sent  oat  by  Sir 
John  Malcolm.  This  distressed  him  so  much,  that  Rajun.  one  of 
his  most  faithful  and  valuable  adherents,  left  him,  and  made  his 
submission.  Yet,  after  all  this,  Cheetoo  found  his  way  into  the 
D^ccan.  and  made  common  cause  with  the  Arabs  and  chiefs  of  the 
Peishwa's  routed  army,  receiving  occasional  protection  from  the 
kiliadar  of  the  fortress  of  Asseerghur.  a  place  of  great  strength, 
the  ancient  capital  of  Khandeish,  and  at  this  time  included 
among  the  possessions  of  Scindia.  His  durra  was  completely 
destroyed,  and  nearly  all  his  followers  deserted  him.  but  nothing 
could  subdue  Cheetoo's  spirit,  or  induce  him  to  surrender.  His 
end,  however,  approached,  and  it  was  tragical  and  singular. 
Having  joined  Apa  Sahib,  he  passed  the  rainy  season  of  1818 
among  the  Mahadeo  mountains ;  and  upon  that  rajah's  expulsion 
by  the  English,  in  February,  1819.  he  accompanied  him  to  the 
fort  of  Asseerghur.  Being  refused  admittance,  he  sought  shel- 
ter in  a  neighbo  ing  jungle,  and  on  horseback  and  alone,  at- 
tempted to  penetrate  a  cover  known  to  be  infested  i  y  tigers.  He 
was  missed  for  some  days,  and  no  one  knew  what  had  become  of 
him.  His  well-known  horse  was  at  last  discovered  grazing  near 
the  margin  of  the  forest,  saddled  and  bridled,  and  exactly  in  the 
state  in  which  it  was  when  Cheetoo  had  last  been  seen  upon  it. 
A  bag  of  two  hundred  and  fifty  rupees  was  found  in  the  saddle, 
together  with  several  seal-rings  and  some  letters  of  Apa  Sahib, 
promising  future  reward  to  the  great  robber.  A  search  was  made 
in  the  cover  for  the  body ;  and  at  no  great  distance  were  found 
clothes  clotted  with  blood,  fragments  of  bones,  and,  lastly,  the 
Pindarree"s  head  entire,  with  the  features  in  a  state  to  be  recog- 
nized. -  The  chief's  mangled  remains,'1  says  the  best  historian 
of  his  adventures,1  tt  were  given  ov«-r  to  his  son  for  intr-rment ; 
and  the  miserable  fate  of  one  who  so  shortly  before  had  ridden 
at  the  head  of  20,000  horse,  gave  an  awful  lesson  of  the  um-er- 
ta  nty  of  fortune,  and  drew  pity  even  from  those  who  had  been 
victims  of  his  barbarity  when  living." 

With  Cheetoo  ended  the  last  of  the  Pindarrees,  and  the 
spirit  which  had  animated  their  vast  lawless  associations.  Their 
name  is  all  that  now  remains  of  them,  for  the  sad  traces  of  their 
devastation  have  entirely  disappeared  under  reestablished  order, 
indus  ry.  pro  perity,  police,  and  good  government.  It  is  now 
nearly  a  quarter  of  a  century  since  that  gallant  officer,  accom- 
plished diplomatist,  and  able  writer,  the  late  Sir  John  Malcolm, 
said  of  them  :  *  -  There  now  remains  not  a  S]>ot  in  India  that  a 

1  Henry  T.  Prinsep.    History  of  die  Political  and  Military  TransactMDS  m 

L.  ; .-. 

*  Memoir  of  Central  India. 


CHAP.  XII.]  MAHRATTA   WARS.  Id 

Pindarree  can  call  his  home.  They  have  been  hunted  like  wild 
beasts ;  numbers  have  been  killed ;  all  ruined.  Those  who 
espoused  their  cause  have  fallen.  They  were  early  in  the  con- 
test shunned  like  a  contagion,  and  even  the  timid  villagers,  whom 
they  so  recently  oppressed,  were  among  the  foremost  to  attack 
them.  Their  principal  leaders  had  either  died,  submitted,  or 
been  made  captives  ;  while  their  followers,  with  the  exception  of 
a  few  whom  the  liberality  and  consideration  of  the  British  gov- 
ernment have  aided  to  become  industrious,  are  lost  in  that  pop- 
ulation from  whose  dross  they  originally  issued.  A  minute 
investigation  only  can  discover  these  once  formidable  disturbers, 
concealed  as  they  now  are  among  the  lowest  classes,  where  they 
are  making  some  amends  for  past  atrocities,  by  the  benefit  which 
is  derived  from  their  labor  in  restoring  trade  find  cultivation. 
These  freebooters  had  none  of  the  prejudices  of  caste,  for  they 
belonged  to  all  tribes.  They  never  had  either  the  pride  of  sol- 
diers, of  family,  or  of  country ;  so  that  they  were  bound  by 
none  of  those  ties  which  among  many  of  the  communities  in 
India  assume  an  almost  indestructible  character.  Other  plun- 
derers m;iy  arise  from  distempered  times ;  but  as  a  body,  the 
Pindarrees  are  so  effectually  destroyed,  that  their  name  is  already 
almost  forgotten,  though  not  five  years  are  passed  since  it  spread 
terror  and  dismay  over  all  India." 

The  Mahratta  wars,  which  were  waged  by  the  Marquess  of 
Hastings,  are  chiefly  interesting  from  their  having  led  Mahratta 
to  these  desirable  results.  In  these  wars  there  was  wars- 
very  little  manoeuvring,  either  on  our  side  or  on  that  of  the  enemy. 
The  great  business  of  our  commanders  was  to  bring  the  army 
rapidly  up  with  the  foe,  and  to  correctly  calculate  and  provide 
for  the  means  of  so  doing.  The  valor  of  our  troops,  native  as 
well  as  European,  their  steadine-s,  rapidity  in  formation,  and 
their  bayonet-points,  did  the  rest.  But  great  was  the  foresight 
required,  and  numerous  the  difficulties  to  be  overcome,  ere  an 
Anglo-Indian  army,  with  its  amazing  train  of  camp-followers, 
could  be  brought  up  with  alert  enemies  who  were  for  the  most 
part  mounted.  After  leaving  their  own  frontiers,  they  had  often 
to  march  hundreds  of  miles  before  they  could  come,  within  reach 
of  a  tangible  enemy.  On  these  m-irches  the  followers  could 
never  he  left  far  behind.  A  very  large  number  of  attendants 
was  considered  indispensable :  one  man  was  required  for  every 
three  bullocks,  and  many  were  required  for  the  elephants  and 
camels  of  the  ar;ny  ;  every  horse  in  the  army  had,  besides  the 
rider,  two  attendants,  one  to  clean  and  take  care  of  him,  the 
other  to  cut  the  grass  and  provide  his  forage  ;  the  palanquin  and 
litter  bearers  for  the  sick  formed  another  numerous  and  useful 
class  ;  field-officers,  including  the  people  who  carried  or  had  charge 

VOL.   II.  11 


162  HISTORY  OF   THE  PEACE.  [Boon  L 

of  their  tents,  baggage,  &c.,  had  each  about  forty  attendants ; 
captains  had  twenty,  and  subalterns  ten  servants  each  ;  the  ba- 
zaar people,  the  merchants,  their  families,  servants,  &c.,  formed 
another  numerous  body.  Generally,  Avhile  marchinjr,  there  were 
no  towns  to  be  depended  on  for  supplies,  and  the  army  not  only 
carried  with  it  most  of  the  means  of  subsistence  for  several 
months,  but  many  articles  of  merchandise.  The  scene  altogether 
resembled  the  migration  of  a  nation  guarded  by  troops,  i-ather 
than  the  advance  of  an  army  to  subdue  an  enemy. 

On  the  first  year  of  this  war  against  the  Pindarrees  and  Mau- 
rattas,  the  army  of  the  Marquess  of  Hastings  was  assailed  by  a 
new  and  terrible  enemy ;  this  was  the  Indian  cholera-morbus, 
the  virulence  of  which  appears  to  have  been  increased  by  the 
crowded  state  of  our  camps.  The  disease  first  broke  out  at  Jes- 
sore,  the  capital  of  a  district  in  the  southern  quarter  of  Bengal, 
a  populous  and  unhealthy  city  in  the  centre  of  the  delta  of  the 
Ganges,  and  near  the  pestiferous  Sunderbunds.  Jt  began  its 
ravages  as  the  rainy  season  of  1817  set  in,  and  cut  off  the  ma- 
jority of  those  whom  it  attacked.  From  Jessore  it  spread  in  all 
directions,  showing,  as  it  was  thought,  a  preference  for  the  valleys 
of  rivers.  Ascending  the  valley  of  the  Ganges,  it  reached  the 
camp  of  Brigadier-General  Hardyman  about  the  beginning  of  Octo- 
ber;  but  the  troops,  being  then  encamped  in  a  dry  healthy  coun- 
try, and  being  but  few  in  number,  suffered  comparatively  little. 
Continuing  its  course  westward,  it  fell  with  extraordinary  vio- 
lence upon  the  army  commanded  by  Lord  Hastings  in  person, 
just  after  his  lordship  had  concluded  the  treaty  with  Scindia. 
This  army,  when  first  seized,  was  encamped  in  a  low  and  un- 
healthy part  of  Bundelcund,  on  the  banks  of  the  river  Sinde,  a 
confluent  of  the  Jumna,  which  has  its  source  in  the  mountains 
of  Malwah.  The  year  was  one  of  scarcity,  and  grain  had  been 
collected  for  the  troops,  through  the  camp-followers,  with  extreme 
difficulty,  and  of  course  of  inferior  quality.  The  water  of  the 
country,  except  where  it  could  be  obtained  from  running  streams, 
was  indifferent.  The  time  of  the  year,  too,  was  that  at  which 
the  heat  of  the  day  is  most  strongly  contrasted  with  the  cold  of 
the  night.  To  all  these  extraordinary  circumstances  was  super- 
added  the  very  crowded  state  of  the  camp  of  so  large  an  army. 
For  about  ten  days  that  the  disease  raged  with  its  grea'est  fury, 
the  whole  camp  was  a  hospital.  The  mortality  amounted  to 
about  a  tenth  of  the  whole  number  collected  there.  Europeans* 
and  natives,  soldiers  and  camp-followers,  were  alike  affected;  but 
the  latter,  being  generally  worse  clothed  and  fed  than  the  fight- 
ing men,  suffered  in  a  greater  proportion.  Of  the  Europeans, 
fewer  were  seized  ;  but  those  who  took  the  disease  more  fre- 
quently died,  and  usually  within  a  few  hours.  The  camp  was 


CHAP.  XII.]    RAVAGES   OF  CHOLERA-MO RBUS.  163 

abandoned,  and  the  army  continued  for  some  days  to  move  to  the 
eastward,  is  the  hope  of  finding  relief  in  a  better  climate ;  but 
each  day's  march  many  dead  and  dying  were  abandoned,  and 
many  more  fell  down  on  the  road  —  so  many  that  it  was  not 
possible  to  furnish  the  means  for  carrying  them  on,  although  the 
utmost  possible  provision  hud  been  made  by  the  previous  distri- 
bution of  bullock-carts  and  elephants  for  the  accommodation  of 
the,  sick.  Nothing  was  heard  along  the  line  of  march  but  groans, 
and  shrieks,  and  lamentations ;  even  the  healthy  were  broken  in 
spirit  and  incapable  of  exertion  ;  and,  for  the  time,  the  efficiency 
of  this  fine  army  seemed  to  be  entirely  destroyed.  Towards 
the  end  of  November,  when  the  army  reached  a  healthy  station 
at  Erech,  on  the  right  bank  of  the  Betwah  River,  the  epidemic 
had  visibly  expended  its  violence.  The  camp  was,  however,  still 
crowded  with  convalescents,  when  it  marched  with  its  noble  com- 
mander to  take  an  active  part  in  the  war. 

During  the  rage  of  the  epidemic,  one  or  two  of  his  servants  in 
attendance  sunk  suddenly  from  behind  his  lordship's  chair ;  and 
the  noble  marquess  himself,  seeing  the  probability  of  being  at- 
tacked by  the  dreadful  disease,  gave  secret  instructions,  in  case 
of  his  dyinir,  to  be  buried  in  his  tent,  lest  the  enemy  should  hear 
of  his  death,  and  be  thereby  encouraged  to  attack  his  disheart- 
ened and  crippled  troops.  The  return  of  health  came  very  op- 
portunely,  for  the  army  had  been  but  a  very  short  time  at  Erech 
when  the  marquess  received  intelligence  that  Scindia  had  sent  an 
invitat  on  to  the  Pindarrees.  The  Mahratt.i  prince  was  reported 
to  have  promised  the  robbers  that  if  they  would  come  so  near  to 
Gwalior  as  to  make  his  getting  to  them  easy,  he  would  break  his 
recent  treaty  with  the  English,  and  join  them  with  the  force 
which  he  had  at  his  capital.  The  Pindarrees,  in  fact,  were  in 
full  march  for  Gwalior,  without  meeting  even  a  show  of  resist- 
ance from  troops  of  Scindia  stationed  on  their  route,  though 
the  cooperation  of  his  army  for  the  extinction  of  the  Pindarrees 
was  an  article  of  the  treaty.  The  movements  of  these  Pin- 
darrees, and  the  suspicious  conduct  of  Scindia's  troops,  imposed 
on  the  marquess  the  necessity  of  making  a  retrograde  movement. 
"  We  hurried  back  to  the  Sinde,"  says  his  lordship  ; 1  ''  but  this 
time  we  chose  a  position  nearer  to  Gwalior  than  that  which  we 
had  before  occupied.  We  were  within  thirty  miles  of  the  city, 
and  our  advanced-guard  was  sent  to  occupy  the  passes  through 
tlu-  hills,  which  run  at  somt;  distance  south  of  Gwalior  from  the 
Sind  •  to  the  Chumbul.  These  passes  were  the  only  routes  by 
which  communication  could  take  place  between  the  Pindarrees 
and  Scindia ;  and  I  was  nearer  to  support  my  advanced-guard 
than  the  Maharajah  (Scindia)  was  to  attack  it,  could  he  bring 
1  Marquess  of  Hastings,  Report  on  the  Rise  and  Progress  of  the  Late  War,  &c. 


164  HISTORY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [BOOK  L 

his  men  to  so  desperate  a  stake.  The  Pindarrees,  finding  their 
hopes  baffled,  and  the  pass,  &c.,  stopped,  attempted  to  retire ;  but 
they  had  been  followed  close  by  our  divisions,  were  surprised, 
dispersed,  and  slaughtered  in  a  number  of  small  actions.  In 
short,  they  disappeared  ;  and  thus  our  objects  were  completed." 

While  the  forces  under  the  Marquess  of  Hastings,  and  the  di- 
visions under  Hislop,  Malcolm,  Marshall,  Keir,  Adams,  and 
other  officers,  were  chasing  the  Pindarrees  from  moor  and  moun- 
tain, valley  and  jungle,  or  reducing  the  forts  in  Malwah,  Briga- 
dier-General Smith,  who  had  been  reinforced  at  Poonah,  prepared 
for  an  aciive  pursuit  of  Bajee  Rao,  the  fugitive  Peishwa,  who 
had  flitted  hither  and  thither  like  an  iynis-fatuus.  Mr.  Mount- 
stuart  Elphinstone,  having  organized  a  police  and  a  provisional 
administration  for  the  city  of  Poonah,  accompanied  General 
Smith  s  division,  which  began  its  march  at  the  end  of  November. 
Gokla,  one  of  the  Peishwa's  evil  advisers,  but  bravest  officers, 
attempted  to  defend  a  ghaut  leading  to  the  high  land  where  the 
Kistna  had  its  source,  and  where  the  Peishwa  had  found  a  ref- 
uge and  a  railyiug-point ;  but  the  Mahratta  was  beaten,  and  the 
pass  was  cleared  by  the  British  with  great  ease.  .No  fighting, 
but  rapid  and  most  wearying  marches,  ensued ;  the  Pe.shwa's 
army  flying  in  a  sort  of  zigzag,  and  the  Peishwa  himself  always 
keeping  in  advance  of  his  main  body.  At  last  the  Mahratta  suc- 
ceeded in  getting  round  Smith's  division  ;  and  then,  passing  be- 
tween Poonah  and  Seroor,  lie  moved  northward  as  far  as  \Vut- 
toor,  on  the  road  to  Nassuck.  Here  he  was  joined  by  his  long- 
lost  favorite,  Trimbukjee,  who  brought  with  him  a  considerable 
reinforcement  of  hor-e  and  foot.  Trimbukjee  had  collected  these 
forces  in  various  directions,  but  a  good  part  of  them  appear  to 
have  been  Pindarrees.  But  for  the  good  fights  made  in  front  of  the 
Presidency  at  Nagpoor,  and  within  the  walls  of  that  city,  Apa 
Sahib  would  have  accompanied  Trimbukjee  with  his  large  army 
and  his  desperate  Arabs.  After  he  had  discovered  the  direction 
the  Peishwa  had  taken,  and  had  recruited  his  own  worn-out  cat- 
tle, General  S.nith,  011  the  22d  of  September,  started  again  in 
pursuit.  This  headlong  race  to  the  northward  brought  Smith 
close  upon  the  rear  of  the  Muhrattas  ;  but,  with  the  lubricity  of 
eels,  they  slipped  through  his  fingers,  and  making  a  flankinove- 
ment- behind  some  hills,  they  turned  suddenly  to  the  south,  an  I 
retraced  their  steps  towards  Poonah.  Colonel  Burr,  who  com- 
manded in  that  city,  apprehending  an  attack,  solicited  the  rein 
forcement  of  a  battalion  from  Seroor.  Captain  Francis  French 
Staunton,1  of  the  Bombay  establishment,  was  forthwith  detached 
from  Seroor,  with  about  600  sepoys,  300  auxiliary  horse,  and 
two  six-pounders.  The  distance  was  only  two  short  marches. 
1  Subsequently  Col.  F.  F.  Staunton,  C.  B. 


CHAP.  XII.]  BATTLE   OF  CORREGAUM.  165 

Staunton  began  his  march  from  Seroor  at  eight  o'clock  in  the 
evening  of  the  31st  of  December,  and  at  ten  the  next  morning 
he  reached  the  heights  of  Corregaum,  about  half-way  to  Poonah, 
when,  looking  down  upon  the  plain  which  lay  between  him  and 
that  city,  he  saw  the  whole  of  the  Peishwa's  army,  estimated 
at  20,000  horse  and  several  thousand  foot.  His  march  to  Poo- 
nah  was  intercepted,  and  he  himself  was  in  great  danger  of  being 
cut  off.  The  brave  officer  did  what  the  circumstances  of  the 
case  required :  he  made  a  dash  at  the  village  of  Corregaum  — 
which  stood  on  the  heights,  and  which  was  composed  of  a  num- 
ber of  stone  houses  with  strong  stone  walls  round  the  gardens  — 
hoping  to  gain  possession  of  it  before  it  could  be  obtained  by 
tlie  enemy.  But  the  Mahrattas,  or  rather  the  Arabs,  who  com- 
posed tlie  main  body  of  their  infantry,  were  as  near  to  the  vil- 
lage as  was  Captain  Staunton ;  and  as  he  entered  at  one  side 
and  took  possession  of  some  of  the  houses,  the  Arabs  entered  at 
the  opposite  side  and  took  possession  of  other  houses.  A  terrible 
struggle  ensued,  at  first  between  the  Company's  troops  and  the 
Arabs  for  the  possession  of  the  whole  of  the  village,  and  then 
between  our  handful  of  men  and  nearly  the  whole  of  the  Mah- 
ratta  army.  Unfortunately,  Captain  Swanston,  who  commanded 
our  3000  auxiliary  horse,  was  wounded  early  in  the  day,  and  his 
•weak  squadrons  could  not  show  themselves  in  face  of  the  masses 
of  Mahratta  cavalry.  The  enemy,  who  had  been  running  too 
fast  to  carry  artillery  with  him,  brought  up  only  two  guns ;  but 
if  there  was  an  equality  in  this  particular  arm,  their  infantry  ex- 
ceeded ours  by  ten  to  one.  Nevertheless  our  admirable  sepoys 
maintained  their  post,  and  kept  up  an  incessant  fight  from  the 
hour  of  noon  till  nine  in  the  evening,  during  which  time  they 
had  no  refreshment,  and  not  even  a  drop  of  water  to  drink.  At- 
tack after  attack  was  made  under  the  eye  of  the  Peishwa,  who 
stood,  no  doubt  at  a  safe  distance,  on  a  neighboring  hill.  They 
had  all  tulle .1,  when  Lieutenant  Chisholm,  the  officer  of  artillery, 
with  most  of  his  men,  having  been  killed  at  a  post  near  a  pagoda, 
and  all  the  European  officers  having  been  disabled  except  three, 
the  Arabs  charged  and  obtained  possession  of  one  of  our  two 
guns  which  was  stationed  at  the  pagoda.  Our  wounded  were 
lying  thick  round  that  building,  and  among  them  were  Assistant- 
Surgeon  Wingate,  Captain  Swanston,  and  Lieutenant  Connellon. 
The  wild  Arabs  immediately  began  to  massacre  these  helpless 
wounded  men,  and  to  mutilate  the  bodies  of  the  slain.  Poor 
Wingate  was  literally  hacked  to  pieces,  as  was  the  body  of 
Lieutenant  Chisholm,  the  officer  of  artillery.  But  the  Arabs 
did  not  long  enjoy  their  bloody  triumph  ;  the  three  undisabled 
officers,  Captain  Staunton,  Lieutenant  Jones,  and  Assistant- 
Surgeon  Wylie,  though  almost  exhausted,  and  with  their  men 


166  HISTORY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [BOOK  I. 

fainting  from  want  of  water,  headed  one  more  charge,  the  last 
of  the  many  that  they  made  during  the  day,  recaptured  the  lost 
gun,  and  slaughtered  the  Arabs  in  a  heap.  The  charge  waa 
utterly  desperate,  for  every  man  felt  that  there  was  nothing 
between  him  and  victory  except  torture  and  death.  On  this 
occasion,  Lieutenant  Pattinson,  who  had  been  wounded  and 
carried  into  a  hotise,  appeared  again  at  the  head  of  his  men,  and 
continued  to  exert  the  little  strength  he  had  left,  until  be  re- 
ceived another  wound,  which  proved  mortal.  Captain  Swanston 
and  Lieutenant  Connellon  were  rescued ;  and  every  man  of 
the  Arabs  who  had  penetrated  to  the  pagoda  was  bayoneted 
without  mercy.  By  a  little  after  nine,  the  enemy  were  com- 
pletely driven  from  the  village  and  all  the  ground  near  it,  and 
our  fainting  sepoys  were  then  enabled  to  obtain  a  supply  of 
water,  the  only  refreshment  they  got  during  the  whole  day  and 
following  night.  Where  the  desperate  Arabs  had  failed,  there 
was  slight  chance  that  the  cowardly  Mahrattas  would  renew  the 
attempt.  Captain  Staunton  and  his  people  passed  the  night 
without  any  molestation.  At  daybreak  on  the  following  morn- 
ing the  Mahratta  army  was  seen  hovering  about  the  village,  but 
none  of  them  would  venture  near ;  and  this  day  also  passed 
without  any  molestation.  Captain  Staunton  had  consumed  so 
much  powder  during  the  nine  hours'  fighting  of  the  preceding 
day,  that  he  had  only  a  few  rounds  of  ammunition  left ;  and  pro- 
visions in  the  camp  there  were  none,  and  none  were  to  be 
procured  in  the  village.  Despairing,  therefore,  of  being  able  to 
reach  Poonah,  he  determined  to  move  back  to  Seroor.  He 
began  his  retreat  in  the  dark  on  the  night  of  the  2d  of  January ; 
he  sacrificed  much  of  his  baggage  in  order  to  provide  the  means 
of  conveying  his  numerous  wounded,  but  he  brought  off  not  only 
his  guns,  but  likewise  all  his  wounded,  and  with  them  reached 
Seroor  by  nine  o'clock  the  next  morning,  the  3d  of  January. 
The  men  had  had  no  refreshment  but  water  from  the  31st  of 
December.  Three  officers  were  killed  and  two  wounded ;  62 
men  were  killed  and  113  wounded,  exclusive  of  the  auxiliary 
horse.  The  loss  of  men  was  most  severe  in  the  artillery,  12 
being  killed  and  8  wounded  out  of  a  detail  for  two  six-pounders 
only. 

In  the  course  of  the  3d  of  January,  the  day  on  which  Captain 
Staunton  got  back  to  Seroor,  Brigadier-General  Smith  reached 
the  village  of  Corregaum  with  his  strong  division.  The  Peishwa 
and  his  Mahrattas  fled  back  to  the  table-land  near  the  sources 
of  the  Kistna,  from  which  they  had  descended.  General  Smith 
followed  them  closely,  and  Brigadier-general  Pritzler,  with  an- 
other division,  was  moving  from  another  point  to  intercept  them. 
The  Mahrattas  continued  to  turn  and  twist  like  eels ;  and  though 


CHAP.  XII.]        DEFEAT   (.  F   THE   MAHRATTAS.  167 

Pritzler  trod  upon  their  tail  more  than  once,  and  cut  off  part 
of  it,  they  could  not  be  so  overtaken  as  to  be  brought  to  a  gen- 
eral action,  or  even  to  a  stand.  They  were  very  nearly  caught 
in  the  neighborhood  of  Satara,  on  the  2Sth  of  January ;  but 
they  escaped  by  a  ghaut,  with  the  loss  of  part  of  their  rear-guard. 
A  small  detachment  under  Colonel  Boles  cannonaded  them  out 
of  another  ghaut,  which  they  were  attempting  to  thread ;  but 
they  only  changed  their  line  of  inarch.  The  troops  were  ex- 
hausted by  this  harassing  pursuit,  which  seemed  to  produce  no 
visible  advantage.  Mountstuart  Elphinstone  had  the  merit  of 
recommending  a  better  plan  of  operations.  This  was  to  storm 
the  many  strong  places  in  the  country,  to  deprive  the  Peishwa 
of  the  means  of  subsistence,  to  reduce  Satara,  which  was  still  the 
nominal  capital  of  the  Mahratta  empire,  and  to  reinstate  the 
Satara  family  in  an  independent  sovereignty.  The  fortress  of 
Satara  surrendered  to  Brigadier-General  Smith  on  the  10th  of 
February,  the  day  on  which  he  first  appeared  before  it.  Some 
other  places  were  in  process  of  reduction,  when  the  Peishwa  made 
certain  rash  movements,  which  enabled  General  Smith  to  fall 
upon  him  at  Ashtah,  on  the  20th  of  February,  with  the  2d  and 
7th  regiments  of  Madras  light  cavalry,  and  two  squadrons  of 
His  Majesty's  22d  dragoons.  Bajee  Rao,  the  dastardly  Peishwa, 
deserted  his  palanquin  and  his  army,  mounting  a  horse,  and 
galloping  away  as  soon  as  the  battle  began ;  but  Gokla,  his  gen- 
eral, seeing  that  he  must  either  fight  or  lose  the  baggage,  and 
nearly  everything  else,  made  a  bold  stand,  outflanking  Smith's 
small  force,  and  at  one  moment  threatening  it  in  the  rear.  But 
the  British  dragoons  charged  his  gole,1  and  killed  him  in  the 
charge.  The  death  of  Gokla  left  the  Mahrattas  without  a  head. 
From  this  moment,  all  was  confusion  and  panic;  each  mass  of 
cavalry  breaking  as  our  dragoons  approached  it.  Some  faint 
resistance  was  attempted  in  the  camp  ;  but  our  dragoons  dashed 
in,  and  made  good  booty.  Twelve  elephants  and  fifty-seven 
camels  formed  part  of  this  prize.  General  Smith  was  slightly 
wounded  on  the  head,  and  Lieutenant  Warrand,  of  the  22d 
dragoons,  was  wounded  by  Gokla,  who  fought  fiercely  in  the 
melee,  and  wounded  several  of  our  men  before  he  fell ;  but  no 
one  was  killed  on  our  side,  and  only  seventeen  or  eighteen  of  the 
soldiers  were  wounded. 

The  remnant  of  the  Peishwa's  army  fled  towards  the  north, 
being  daily  thinned  by  desertion.  Brigadier-General  Pritzler, 
General  Monro,  Colonels  Prother  and  Deacon,  reduced  all  the 
forts  that  remained  ;  the  Mahratta  flag  was  fast  disappearing, 
and  so  were  the  hopes  of  the  Mahratta  chiefs.  Our  divisions  and 
detachments  in  the  field,  in  almost  all  parts  of  India,  were  too 
1  A  mass  of  SJahratta  cavalry. 


168  HISTORY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [BOOK  I, 

numerous  and  too  well  posted  to  allow  of  any  junction  being  ef- 
fected between  the  Pci^hwa  and  the  forces  of  any  of  our  other 
enemies. 

After  the  battle  of  Ashtah,  Brigadier-General  Smith  repaired 
to  Satara,  in  order  to  assist  Mr.  Elphinstoue  in  setting  up  the 
rajah.  In  this  way  the  Peishwa  gained  a  few  days'  respite,  dur- 
ing which  he  continued  to  press  to  the  northwest,  with  the  design 
of  throwing  himself  into  the  territories  of  the  Nizam  of  the 
Deccan,  which  he  hoped  to  find  ill  furnished  with  troops.  But 
turning  back  from  Satara,  and  making  a  short  halt  at  Seroor, 
Smith  renewed  his  pursuit  of  the  Peishwa  on  the  10th  of  March. 
Brigadier-General  Doveton,  with  his  division,  mov^  d  in  another 
direction,  in  the  expectation  of  intercepting  the  Peishwa.  Nev- 
ertheless, the  Mahratta  traversed  the  Nizam's  dominions  from 
west  to  east,  and  appeared  on  the  banks  of  the  Whurdah  on  the 
1st  of  April.  But  as  his  van  was  crossing  that  river,  witli  the 
intention  of  marching  upon  Nagpoor,  it  was  met  and  driven  back 
by  a  small  detachment  under  Colonel  Scott.  The  Peishwa  then 
tried  to  cross  the  river  at  another  point,  but  here  he  was  met 
by  Colonel  Adams,  and  was  informed  by  his  scouts  that  General 
Doveton  was  getting  close  upon  him.  Without  waiting  the  ar- 
rival of  Doveton,  Adams  followed  the  Mahrattas,  came  up  with 
them  near  Seuni,  and  with  only  one  regiment  of  native  cavalry 
and  some  horse-artillery,  gave  them  a  signal  overthrow.  The 
enemy  fled  through  the  jungles,  leaving  behind  them  live  guns, 
the  Peishwa's  much-sunken  treasure,  three  elephants,  and  '200 
camels.  This  time  Bajee  Rao  had  a  very  narrow  escape ;  for, 
though  he  began  to  run  as  soon  as  his  people  began  to  fight,  a 
palanquin  in  which  he  had  just  been  riding  was  taken,  and  was 
found  to  be  perforated  by  a  shot.  More  than  1000  of  his  Mah- 
rattas remained  dead  on  the  field.  They  were  knocked  down  by 
our  horse-artillery,  or  by  our  cavalry,  in  their  flight.  They  can 
scarcely  have  stood  anywhere,  for  Colonel  Adams's  total  loss 
Avas  only  two  wounded.  General  Doveton  was  near  enough 
to  hear  the  firing  of  Adams's  guns ;  but  it  was  found  necessary 
to  halt  our  troops,  in  order  to  wait  for  supplies ;  and  then 
mistakes  were  committed  as  to  the  direction  in  which  the  pur- 
suit ought  to  be  continued.  Nor  was  it  easy  to  avoid  these 
errors,  for  the  Peishwa's  army  split  up  into  various  detach- 
ments, and  each  took  a  route  of  its  own.  Two  thirds  of  his 
people  quitted  his  standard  altogether,  and  were  only  anxious 
to  reach  their  homes  as  speedily  as  might  be.  Bajee  Rao's 
whole  object  now  was  to  get  back  to  the  northeast ;  but  here  he 
found  his  progress  siopped  by  General  Sir  Thomas  Hislop,  who 
was  returning  from  Malwah  to  the  Deccan.  On  his  way,  Sir 
Thomas  had  resorted  to  a  measure  of  unusual  severity.  The 


CHAP.  XII.]          ATTACK  ON  FORT  TALNAIR.  169 

fort  of  Talnair  or  Talneir,  situated  on  the  north  bank,  and  com- 
manding a  ford  over  the  river  Taptee,  was  one  of  the  places 
ceded  to  the  English  by  Holkar  under  the  late  treaty.  Sir 
Thomas  had  in  his  possession  Holkar's  own  orders  for  the  quiet 
surrender  of  the  place;  yet  afire  was  opened  upon  his  troops 
from  the  fort.  The  Mahratta  killadar,  or  commandant,  was 
warned  that  if  he  continued  to  resist  the  order  of  his  master,  he 
would  be  dealt  with  as  a  rebel ;  without  heeding  the  message, 
the  killadar  continued  to  fire.  Upon  this  Sir  Thomas  Hislop 
occupied  the  pettah,  or  open  town,  and  turned  his  artillery 
upon  the  fort.  The  gate  of  the  fort  was  blown  open  by 
two  six-pounders.  The  flank  companies  of  the  Royal  S  ots  and 
of  the  Company's  European  regiment  rushed  in,  and  came 
to  the  second  gate,  which  was  found  open.  At  the  third  gate 
they  were  met  by  the  killadar,  who  came  out  by  the  wicket 
and  surrendered  to  Colonel  Con  way  The  third  and  fourth 
gates  were  then  opened,  and  the  storming-pnrty  advanced  to  the 
fifth,  which  led  into  the  body  of  the  place.  This  was  found 
shut,  but  part  of  the  garrison  within  demanded  terms,  and  ex- 
pressed their  dissatisfaction  at  the  gates  being  closed.  After  a 
very  short  parley,1  in  which  they  were  summoned  to  surrender 
at  discretion,  the  wicket-gate  was  opened  from  within,  and  Lieu- 
tenant-Colonel Murray,  Major  Gordon,  Captain  MacGregor,  and 
Lieutenant  Chauvel  and  MacGregor,  entered,  and  were  followed 
by  ten  or  twelve  grenadiers.  They  were  scarcely  within  the 
wicket  when  some  wild  Arabs,  who  formed  part  of  the  garrison, 
fell  upon  them  with  swords,  spears,  and  knives.  Major  Gordon 
and  Captain  MacGregor  were  killed  forthwith ;  Lieutenant- 
Colonel  Murray  was  wounded  in  several  places,  cut  down,  and 
disabled ;  the  two  lieutenants  were  wounded  and  cut  down  also, 
and  all  the  grenadiers  were  eiiher  killed  or  wounded.  But  the 
rest  of  our  storming-party  soon  rushed  through  the  wicket  drove 
off  the  murderous  Arabs, and  in  the  end  slaughtered  every  man 
that  was  in  the  fort.  Between  Arabs,  Patans,  and  Mahrattas, 
SO')  men  were  sacrificed  to  the  vengeance  of  our  infuriated  sol- 
diery. On  the  next  morning,  Sir  Thomas  Hislop  had  the  killa- 
dar hanged  on  one  of  the  bastions,  on  the  twofold  charge  of  re- 
bellion and  treachery.  It  was  doubted  whether  the  killadar  had 
ordered,  or  was  privy  to,  the  onslaught  of  the  Arabs ;  it  was 
doubted,  but  we  think  unreasonably,  whether  the  Arabs  under- 
stood that  the  killadar  had  surrendered,  and  that  the  Mahrattas 
had  agreed  to  submit;  and  the  conduct  of  Sir  Thomas  Hislop, 
in  ordering  the  execution  of  the  killadar,  was  severely  censured 

1  Colonel  Valentine  Blacker,  Memoir    Journals  of  the  Sieves  of  the  Madras 
of  the  Operations  of  the  British  Army     Army,  &c.  in  the  years  1817-19,  &c. 
in  India,  £c.  Lieutenant  Kdwurd  Lake, 


170  HISTORY   OF   THE  PEACE.  [BooK  L 

in  several  quarters.  But  the  example  was  useful,  and  upon 
knowing  that  the  commandant  of  Talnair  had  been  executed, 
the  killadars  of  the  much  stronger  forts  of  Gaulna,  Chandore, 
and  other  places  which  Holkar  had  ceded,  submitted  upon  sum- 
mons, or  as  soon  as  they  were  shown  Holkar's  orders  to  admit 
the  English. 

Bajee  Rao  had  been  running  hither  and  thither  for  more  than 
six  months,  but  his  race  was  now  wellnigh  finished.  North, 
south,  east,  and  west,  his  road  was  cut  off,  and  forces  were  mov- 
ing round  him  from  the  intermediate  points  of  the  compass. 
Finding  himself  so  sorely  pressed,  he  attempted  again  to  pass 
into  Malwah  ;  but  Sir  John  Malcolm,  who  was  himself  at  Mhow, 
a  town  or  large  cantonment  in  the  Malwah  province,  had  so 
stationed  some  forces  under  Lieutenant-Colonels  Russel  and  Cor- 
sellis  as  to  render  this  movement  impracticable.  On  the  even- 
ing of  the  25th  of  May,  Sir  John  Malcolm  learned  that  a  vakeel 
from  the  Peishwa  had  arrived  at  a  place  on  the  Nerbudda  River, 
about  forty  miles  from  Mhow.  Malcolm  immediately  moved 
towards  that  place,  and  took  his  troops  with  him.  On  the  27th 
of  May,  he  met  the  vakeel  or  ambassador,  who  assured  him  that 
the  Peishwa  was  determined  to  come  to  him,  and  to  trust  to  his 
friendship  and  generosity.  Sir  John,  being  informed  of  the  plan 
of  disposing  of  the  Peishwa  which  had  been  framed  by  the  Mar- 
quess of  Hasiings  and  Mr.  Elphinstone,  stated  the  conditions,  and 
sent  the  vakeel  back  to  his  master,  who  was  occupying  a  good 
position  on  a  hill.  The  Peishwa  remained  irresolute  fur  several 
days,  during  which  the  division  of  General  Dovelon  and  other 
troops  got  close  into  his  neighborhood.  At  last,  on  the  evening 
of  the  1st  of  June,  he  came  down  to  a  village  in  the  plain,  and 
met  Sir  John  Malcolm.  The  Mahratta  did  not  come  alone ;  he 
had  an  escort  2500  strong,  and  he  brought  his  family  with  him. 
Malcolm,  who  had  come  to  the  appointed  place  with  only  a  ihin 
attendance,  repeated  the  conditions,  and  demanded  the  immediate 
surrender  of  Trimbukjee.  Bajee  Rao  declared  that  it  was  not 
in  his  power  to  give  up  Trimbukjee ;  that  Trimbukjee  had  an 
army  and  camp  of  his  own;  that  he  was  stronger  ihan  he  was. 
"  Then,"  said  Malcolm,  "  I  will  attack  him  forthwith."  "  Success 
attend  you  !"  replied  the  Peishwa.  The  Mahratta  prince  fur- 
ther declared  that  he  had  been  involved  in  a  war  without  mean- 
ing it ;  that  he  was  treated  as  an  enemy  by  the  English,  who 
had  supported  his  family  for  two  generations  ;  that  he  was  now 
in  a  lamentable  situation,  but  believed  that  he  still  had  a  real 
friend  in  Sir  John  Malcolm.  He  was  told  that  he  ought  either 
to  throw  himself  at  once  on  the  magnanimity  of  the  British 
government,  or  prepare  for  further  resistance.  "  How  can  I 
resist  now  ?  "  said  the  Mahratta  ;  "  I  am  surrounded."  Mal» 


CHAP.  XII.]          SURRENDER   OF  BAJEE   RAO.  171 

colm  replied  that  this  was  quite  true,  but  that  still  he  might 
escape  it'  lie  preferred  becoming  a  freebooter  and  wanderer  to 
accepting  the  liberal  provisions  which  the  English  were  ready 
to  give  him.  B;ijee  Rao  protested  that  Malcolm  was  his  friend, 
his  only  friend,  and  that  he  would  never  leave  him,  but  trust 
entirely  to  his  good  offices.  Nevertheless,  the  Peish\\a,  en 
breaking  up  the  conference,  asked  for  a  little  delay,  and  in  retir- 
ing to  the  ghaut  from  wliich  he  had  descended,  he  took  care  to 
guard  his  rear  and  flanks  with  his  resolute  Arab  infantry,  and 
to  show  the  muzzles  of  his  guns  over  the  rocks  ;  and  upon  reach- 
ing his  camp  he  sent  trusty  messengers  to  the  camp  of  Trim- 
bukjee,  to  tell  that  favorite  to  beware  of  Malcolm.  It  was,  how- 
ever, utterly  impossible  for  him  to  procrastinate  very  long,  for  he 
was  completely  hemmed  in,  and  his  supplies  of  provisions  were 
failing.  He  informed  Sir  John  Malcolm  that  he  would  go  to  his 
camp,  and  conclude  the  treaty  as  proposed  to  him,  on  the  morn- 
ing of  the  3d  of  June.  When  that  morning  came,  he  tried  one 
faint  shuffle  more.  It  was  an  inauspicious  day,  he  had  some  re- 
ligious ceremonies  to  perform ;  would  not  his  dear  friend  Mal- 
colm wait  till  to-morrow  ?  Malcolm  gave  him  to  understand  that 
he  would  not  wait  another  hour ;  and  this,  with  the  not  very  dis- 
tant firing  of  some  English  guns  on  one  of  his  flanks  or  in  his 
rear,  had  the  effect  of  removing  all  further  hesitation.  At  about 
eleven  o'clock  on  the  morning  of  the  3d,  he  came  down  to  Sir 
John  Malcolm's  camp,  and  delivered  himself  up,  with  his  family. 
Malcolm,  like  nearly  all  his  distinguished  Indian  contemporaries, 
was  a  man  of  a  large  and  generous  heart ;  none  knew  better  than 
he  the  demerits  and  the  helplessness  of  the  fallen  enemy  now 
before  him,  yet  he  agreed  that  the  Peishwa's  allowance  should 
not  be  less  than  eight  lacs  of  rupees  per  annum,  and  that  a  most 
liberal  provision  should  be  made  for  his  courtiers,  Brahmans, 
temples,  &c.  The  supreme  government  at  Calcutta  thought  that 
Sir  John  had  granted  too  much  ;  but  as  it  was  done,  they  con- 
firmed the  grants.  Bajee  Rao  renounced  forever  the  dignity  of 
Peishwa,  or  supreme  chief  of  the  Mahrattas,  together  with  all 
liis  claims  of  sovereignty.  If  Trim'iukjee  had  not  been  secured 
in  an  English  prison,  the  case  might  have  been  different ;  but  as 
that  turbulent  felon  was  caught,  after  another  hard  run  for  it,  the 
ex-Peishwa  quietly  resigned  himself  to  a  life  of  luxury  and  ease, 
spending  his  80,000/.  a  year,  not  in  raising  troops  or  exciting 
combinations  against  the  Company,  but  in  mere  sensual  indul- 
gences. He  was  very  anxious  to  have  his  residence  fixed  at 
Poonah  ;  but  to  this  the  Governor-General  objected  strongly,  and 
for  very  evident  reasons.  To  Benares,  which  was  proposed  to 
him  as  a  suitable  residence,  he  expressed  a  rooted  aversion.  He 
would  have  preferred  Muttra,  but  as  that  was  a  frontier  station  it 


172  HISTORY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [BOOK  I. 

was  refused.  The  village  of  Bithoor  or  Brimatwar,  on  the  Gan- 
ges, near  Cawnpoor,  was  finally  fixed  upon  for  his  residence. 
His  progress  through  Rajpootana  and  the  Doab  to  the  place  of  his 
exile  excited  hardly  any  sensation  among  the  people.  When  set- 
tled at  Bithoor,  he  bathed  daily  in  the  holy  water  of  the  Ganges, 
indulged  in  the  highest  living  of  a  Brahman,  maintained  three 
expensive  sets  of  dancing-girls,  and  surrounded  himself  with  low 
buffoons  and  sycophants.  The  rallying-point  of  the  Mahratta 
confederacy  was  thus  broken  up,  and  if  it  was  not  quite  so  easy 
to  change  the  character  of  the  Mahratta  people,  and  to  introduce 
peaceful  industrious  habits  among  them  —  if  the  unchanged  char- 
acter of  that  people  prognosticated  future  troubles  in  India  — 
still  their  power  of  doing  mischief  was  from  this  t;me  vastly  re- 
duced. To  the  restored  family  of  the  Rajah  of  Satara,  whose 
hereditary  claim  to  the  sovereignty  of  the  country,  and  to  the 
dignity  of  Peishwa,  was  held  to  be  much  better  than  that  of  Bajce 
Rao,  only  a  very  limited  territory  was  allotted,  upon  his  yielding 
all  claim  or  pretension  to  be  Peishwa  ;  a  dignity  wisely  and  for- 
ever abrogated.  The  Satara  dominions  occupy  a  surface  of  about 
1 1,000  square  miles  ;  bving  bounded  on  the  west  by  the  Western 
Ghaut  Mountains  ;  on  the  south,  by  the  Warna  and  Kistna ; 
on  the  north,  by  the  Neera  and  Beemah  Rivers ;  and  on  the 
east,  by  the  frontier  of  the  Nizam's  dominions.  The  total  net 
revenues  amounted  to  15,600,000  rupees;  but  out  of  this  sura 
three  lacs  per  annum  were  reserved  for  chiefs  who  had  become 
subjects  of  the  Company,  and  three  lacs  more  were  alienated. 
The  management  of  the  territories,  and  the  superintendence  of 
the  Rajah  of  Satara's  affairs,  were  assigned  to  Captain  Grant 
until  the  country  should  become  tranquillized.  Many  of  the  hill- 
forts,  which  had  been  what  the  worst  of  our  baronial  castles  were 
in  the  early  part  of  the  twelfth  century  —  dens  of  thieves,  cut- 
throats, and  violators —  were  dismantled;  and  others,  cleared  of 
their  occupants,  were  allowed  to  go  to  ruin.  In  1821,  when  the 
young  rajah  attained  the  age  of  twenty-one,  he  was  invested  with 
the  administration  of  his  dominions,  which  were  then  tranquil 
and  prosperous. 

Upon  the  conclusion  of  the  treaty  with  Sir  John  Malcolm,  all 
that  remained  of  the  ex-Peishwa's  army  quietly  broke  up  and 
dispersed.  Not  even  Trimbukjee  could  keep  a  force  together. 
This  chief,  knowing  that  the  English  would  condemn  him  to  im- 
prisonment for  life,  fled  with  a  few  followers  to  the  neighborhood 
of  Nassuck,  a  large  town  and  place  of  pilgrimage  on  the  Goclav- 
ery,  principally  inhabited  by  Brahmans.  The  murderer  had 
ever  shown  a  preference  for  these  holy  places,  and  he  probably 
hoped  to  escape  notice  among  the  crowds  of  Hindoo  pilgrims 
that  were  constantly  repairing  to  the  temples  of  Nassuck.  Here, 


CHAP.  XII.]  RESTORATION   OF  PEACE.  173 

in  fact,  he  remained  concealed  for  some  time,  in  spite  of  the 
active  search  making  for  him.  At  last,  Captain  Swanston,  one 
of  the  heroes  of  Corregaum,  being  detached  by  Mi1.  Elphin%tone 
from  a  distant  station,  succeeded,  after  a  march  of  fifty  miles  in 
sixteen  hours,  in  discovering  the  murderer's  hiding-place,  and  in 
surrounding  the  house.  When  the  gates  were  forced  Trimbuk- 
jee  was  reclining  on  a  cot ;  he  fled  to  the  upper  part  of  the  house, 
and  concealed  himself  under  some  straw.  He  was  presently 
dragged  from  his  cover ;  he  offered  no  resistance,  and  was  sent 
under  a  good  guard  to  Tannah,  the  prison  from  which  he  had  es- 
caped through  the  ingenious  aid  of  the  Mahratta  groom  and 
songster.  After  a  short  time  he  was  carried  to  Calcutta,  and  put 
into  the  cage  in  Fort  William,  which  had  previously  been  occu- 
pied by  Vizier  Ali ;  but  he  was  very  soon  conveyed  to  the  rock 
of  Chunar,  near  Benares. 

The  capture  of  the  fortress  of  Asseerghur  was  the  last  opera- 
tion of  the  Pindarree  and  Mahratta  war  ;  a  war  which  had  wit- 
nessed an  unprecedented  number  of  sieges,  an  unprecedented 
number  and  complexity  of  movements,  and  some  of  the  most  re- 
markable forced  marches  that  were  ever  made  in  any  country. 
"  Thirty  hill-fortresses,1  each  of  which  might  have  defied  the 
whole  Anglo-Indian  army,  fell  in  the  course  of  a  few  weeks  ; 
and  this  vast  Mahratta  empire,  which  had  overshadowed  the 
East,  and  before  which  the  star  of  the  Mogul  had  become  pale, 
was  annihilated." 

After  the  siege  of  Asseerghur  the  armies  of  the  three  presi- 
dencies returned  to  their  several  stations  and  cantonments  in 
Bengal,  Madras,  and  Bombay ;  and  the  regions  which  had  been 
crossed  and  recrossed,  and  traversed  in  all  directions  by  immense 
hosts  of  combatants,  by  British  and  native  troops.  Peishwa 
Mahrattas,  Ilolkar  Mahrattas,  Nagpoor  Mahrattas,  Pindarrees, 
Pa  tans,  Arabs,  Gonds,  and  others,  became  quiet  as  a  bay  of  the 
ocean  after  a  storm ;  quieter  and  happier  than  they  had  been  for 
many  ages.  In  the  territories  assumed  by  the  Company,  or 
taken  under  its  immediate  protection,  able  men  were  left  by  the 
Marquess  of  Hastings  to  improve  this  tranquillity,  to  establish 
permanently  the  reign  of  peace  and  law,  and  to  better  the  con- 
dition of  all  the  native  inhabitants.  For  more  than  thirty  pre- 
ceding years,  the  province  of  Malwah  and  the  whole  of  Central 
India  had  been  oppressed,  pillaged,  and  laid  waste  by  the  Pin- 
darrees, by  the  Mahrattas  of  all  tribes,  by  the  Rajpoot  princes, 
and  by  the  Puars  ;  these  different  powers  acted  sometimes  in 
combination,  but  more  frequently  in  opposition  to  one  another ; 
they  were  all  equally  cruel  and  rapacious  in  the  moment  of  suc- 

1  Edward  Lake,  Lieutenant  of  Madras  Engineers.  Journals  of  the  Sieges  of 
Ihe  Madras  Army. 


174  HISTORY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [BOOK  I. 

cess  and  conquest,  and  about  equally  incapable  of  giving  that 
stability  to  their  conquests  which  would  have  given  relief  to  the 
pooi%>ppressed  people,  whose  greatest  calamity  was  the  frequent 
change  of  masters.  To  Sir  John  Malcolm,  who  had  assisted  so 
potentially  in  subduing  the  sanguinary  an.-irchists,  and  expelling 
the  Pindarrees,  was  assigned  the  equally  diffiVult  duty  of  restor- 
ing order  and  repairing  the  frightful  mischiefs  which  had  been 
committed  in  so  long  a  series  of  years.  He  was  appointed  by 
the  Marquess  of  Hastings  to  the  military  and  political  command 
of  Malwah,  which  had  perhaps  suffered  more  than  any  other 
part  of  India.  Hundreds  upon  hundreds  of  its  villages  were  de- 
serted and  roofless;  the  ferocious  tigers  of  the  jungles  literally 
usurped  the  country,  and  fought  with  the  returning  inhabitants  for 
their  fields.  In  the  state  of  Holkar  alone,  of  3701  villages,  only 
2038  were  inhabited  ;  1663  were  "  without  lamp  "  —  were  wholly 
deserted.  Under  the  wise  rule  established  by  Malcolm,  more 
than  two  thirds  of  these  deserted  villages  were  restored  and  re- 
peopled  before  the  end  of  1820  ;  and  in  less  than  five  years  from 
the  time  our  army  first  occupied  the  country,  &r  John  could  boast 
with  an  honorable  pride,  and  with  perfect  correctness,  that  Mai-  . 
wah  and  the  rest  of  Central  India  were  tranquil  and  contented, 
and  rapidly  advancing  in  population  and  prosperity.  "It  may 
be  asserted  1  that  history  affords  few  examples  where  a  change 
in  the  political  condition  of  a  country  has  been  attended  with 
such  an  aggregate  of  increased  happiness  to  its  inhabitants,  as 
that  which  was  effected  within  four  years  in  Central  India  ;  and 
it  is  pleasing  to  think  that,  with  the  exception  of  suppressing  a 
few  Bheel  robbers,  peace  was  restored,  and  has  hitherto  been 
maintained,  without  one  musket  being  fired."  Accustomed  to  the 
extremities  of  military  violence,  the  inhabitants  of  the  country, 
on  the  English  first  entering,  betrayed  feelings  of  doubt  and 
alarm.  These  were,  by  some,  mistaken  for  dislike  to  our  su- 
premacy ;  but  they  arose  only  out  of  fear  of  insult  or  outrage,  and 
they  were  speedily  removed  by  the  strict  discipline  preserved 
by  our  troops,  whether  stationary  or  marching.  In  a  very  short 
time,  wherever  troops  or  individuals  moved,  they  were  received 
with  cordiality,  as  the  friends  and  protectors  of  the  people.  To 
organize  the  country,  honorable  and  intelligent  British  officers 
were  sent  into  every  part  of  it.  "  The  result  has  been  fortunate 
beyond  anticipation.  These  agents,  within  their  respective  cir- 
cles, have  not  only,  by  their  direct  intercourse  with  all  classes, 
established  great  influence,  but  spread  a  knowledge  of  our  char- 
acter and  intentions,  which  has  increased  respect  and  confidence  ; 
and  they  have  in  almost  all  ca<es  succeeded,  by  the  arbitra  ion  of 
differences,  and  the  settlement  of  local  disputes,  in  preserving 
1  Memoir  of  Central  India. 


CHAP.  XII.J     HAPPY  EFFECTS  OF  BRITISH  RULE.  175 

the  peace  of  the  country  without  troops.  The  most  exact  observ- 
ance of  certain  principles  is  required  from  these  officers,  and 
their  line  is  wry  carefully  and  distinctly  prescribed.  The  ob- 
ject has  been  to  escape  every  interference  with  the  internal  ad- 
ministration of  the  country,  beyond  what  the  preservation  of  the 
public  peace  demanded."  In  other  parts  of  India  the  change 
wa<  equally  beneficial  —  the  blessings  derived  from  the  conquest 
of  the  Mahrattas  and  the  extirpation  of  the  Pindarrees  were 
equally  apparent.  As  Bishop  Heber  Avas  travelling  through  the 
country  in  1824,  he  overheard  a  conversation  among  some  vil- 
lagers, who  were  comparing  the  present  peaceable  times  with 
those  in  which  "  Ameer  Khan  and.Bappoo  Scindia  came  up  with 
their  horsemen,  and  spoiled  all  the  land,  and  smote  all  the  people, 
and  burned  the  cities  through  Mewar  and  Marwar,  till  thou 
coinest  unto  the  salt  wilderness."  He  also  heard  them  say  that 
corn  had  been  gradually  getting  cheaper,  and  notwithstanding  a 
late  unfavorable  reason,  was  still  not  so  dear  as  it  used  to  be  in 
the  years  of  trouble.  The  kind  and  warm-hearted  prelate  adds: 
"  When  such  have  been  the  effects  of  British  supremacy,  who 
will  refuse  to  pray  for  the  continuance  of  our  empire  ?  " 

The  reputation  of  the  British  in  India  has  never  stood  higher 
than  at  the  conclusion  of  the  Pindarree  and  Mahratta  war ;  and 
during  the  four  remaining  years  of  Lord  Hastings's  government, 
the  face  of  Central  India  was  changed  to  an  extent  which  would 
have  appeared  almost  incredible  to  any  one  who  had  not  con- 
templated upon  the  spot  the  rapid  progress  of  the  change,  and 
studied  the  causes  by  which  it  was  produced.  No  war  had  be- 
gun in  a  higher  motive,  or  had  ended  in  a  more  positive  good  to 
mankind.  "  The  campaign  which  had  just  terminated,"  says 
Malcolm,1  "  was  not  an  attack  upon  a  state,  or  upon  a  body  of 
men,  but  upon  a  system.  It  was  order  contending  against  anar- 
chy ;  and  the  first  triumph  was  so  complete,  that  there  ceased, 
almost  from  the  moment,  to  be  any  who  cherished  hopes  of  the 
contest  being  either  prolonged  or  revived  ;  the  victory  gained  was 
slight,  comparatively  speaking,  over  armies,  to  what  it  was  over 
mind.  The  universal  distress,  which  a  series  of  revolutions  must 
ever  generate,  had  gone  its  circle,  and  reached  all  ranks  and 
classes.  The  most  barbarous  of  those  who  subsisted  on  plunder 
had  found  that  a  condition  of  continued  uncertainty  and  alarm 
could  not  be  one  of  enjoyment.  The  princes,  chiefs,  and  inhabi- 
tants of  the  country  had  neither  national  feelings,  confidence  in 
each  other,  nor  any  one  principle  of  union.  When,  therefore, 
the  English  government,  too  strong  to  be  resisted,  proclaimed 
every  district  to  be  the  right  of  its  proprietor,  on  condition  of  hig 
proving  himself  the  friend  of  peace  and  good  order;  and  when 
1  Memoir  of  Central  India. 


176  HISTORY   OF   THE   PEACE.  [BOOK  L 

men  found  that  the  choice  between  such  a  course,  and  that  of 
continuing  the  promoters  of  anarchy,  was  an  option  between  its 
friendship  or  hostility,  all  concurred  in  submission.  There  ap- 
peared in  a  few  a  difficulty  to  conquer  habits,  but  in  none  a  spirit 
of  opposition.  The  desolated  state  of  the  country  was  favora- 
ble to  the  change,  for  it  presented  an  ample  field  for  the  revival 
of  industry  in  peaceful  occupations  ;  but  the  paramount  influence 
which  the  results  of  the  war  gave  to  the  British  government 
over  several  of  the  native  states,  was  the  principal  cause  of  that 
peace  and  prosperity  which  ensued.  Our  officers  were  enabled 
to  give  shape  and  direction  to  the  efforts  of  these  states,  which 
became  an  example  to  others ;  and  a  tone  of  improvement  was 
given  to  every  province  of-  Ce'ntral  India." 

The  inhabitants  of  the  wild  provinces  subject  to  Scindia  started 
into  prosperity  as  soon  as  his  numerous,  restless,  and  marauding 
army  was  broken  up.  And  Scindia  himself  was  as  great  a  gainer 
as  his  subjects  ;  for  this  army,  and  the  insolent,  rapacious  chief- 
tains who  raised  and  commanded  it,  in  reality  oppressed  him  as 
well  as  the  people,  and  rarely  left  him  at  liberty  to  use  his  own 
judgment,  or  act  according  to  his  own  will.  The  most  danger- 
ous of  these  chieftains  were  now  destroyed ;  and,  aided  by  the 
presence  of  English  armies,  by  the  universal  discouragement 
which  had  fallen  upon  the  Mahrattas,  and  by  the  confirmed  con- 
viction that  their  old  trade  of  war  had  become  an  unprofitable 
trade,  Scindia  was  enabled  to  disband  immense  corps  commanded 
by  insubordinate  chiefs,  and  to  reduce  his  army  to  13,000  regular 
infantry,  and  9000  horse.  The  saving  in  actual  expenditure, 
from  reductions  alone,  was  estimated  at  twenty  lacs  of  rupees 
per  annum.  At  the  same  time  the  revenues  were  raised  forty 
per  cent,  by  the  restoration  of  tranquillity  and  order.  Even  the 
disbanded  soldiers  returned  to  their  native  districts,  and  to  their 
former  occupation,  as  cultivators  of  the  soil.  The  lamp  had  been 
altogether  extinguished  in  only  a  few  villages  in  Scindia's  domin- 
ions, but  many  of  these  villages  had  been  reduced  to  four  or  five 
families.  The  voids  were  rapidly  filled  up.  In  1817  there  was 
not  one  district  belonging  to  Scindia  that  was  not  more  or  less  in 
a  disturbed  state;  in  1821  there  existed  not  one  enemy  to  the 
public  peace  in  any  of  these  districts.  All  the  districts  which 
had  been  wrested  from  this  chief  by  the  Pindarrees  were  restored 
to  him ;  the  loss  of  the  fortress  of  Asseerghu-r  was  nearly  all  he 
lost  by  the  war.  In  the  dominions  of  Holkar,  where  the  anarchy 
and  devastation  had  been  greater,  the  change  to  good  was  the 
more  striking.  Our  victory  at  Maheidpoor  had  scattered  forever 
the  overgrown  army  of  this  state  ;  those  battalions  were  never 
reernbodied,  and  200  men  to  guard  the  palace  were  all  the  in- 
fantry left  in  the  service  of  this  Mahratta  dynasty.  Three  thou- 


CHAP.  XII.]  RAPID   IMPROVEMENTS.  177 

sand  obedient  cavalry  were  retained  for  the  police  of  the  country, 
together  with  a  small  park  of  artillery.  In  less  than  four  years 
the  revenues  of  the  state  were  nearly  quadrupled ;  and  the  ex- 
penses of  collection  were  brought  down  from  forty  to  fifteen  per 
cent.  The  rapid  restoration  of  the  roofless  and  deserted  villages 
has  been  mentioned.  The  increase  of  population  in  the  towns 
was  surprising.  Within  the  short  space  of  three  years,  Indore, 
a  city  in  the  province  of  Malwah,  the  capital  of  the  Holkar  fam- 
ily, was  changed  from  a  desolate  town  to  a  flourishing  capital, 
containing  eighty  or  a  hundred  thousand  inhabitants  ;  for  not 
only  did  those  families  return  which  had  fled  in  the  troublous 
times,  but  the  inhabitants  of  other  towns  and  districts  migrated 
in  large  numbers,  and  settled  in  Indore.  The  young  prince, 
who  was  secured  on  the  musnud  by  British  power,  abandoned 
the  custom  of  his  predecessors  of  always  residing  in  camp,  and 
fixed  his  residence  in  this  thriving  capital.  Other  states  and 
territories  participated  in  these  advantages.  The  Grasseas,  the 
Sondwarrees,  the  Gonds,  as  well  as  the  Bheels  and  other  hered- 
itary and  professional  robbers,  were  rapidly  suppressed. l  When 
the  British  armies  first  entered  Central  India,  and  even  in- 18 18, 
the  country  along  the  banks  of  the  Nerbudda,  and  in  the  Vindhya 
mountains,  which  stretch  from  the  province  of  Bahar  to  Cape 
Comorin,  was  not  safe  for  even  troops  to  pass ;  and  till  the  end 
of  the  same  year,  when  a  British  cantonment  was  established  at 
Mhow,  the  robbers  continued  their  depredations.  All  these 
bands  were  repressed,  and  the  most  vicious  and  depraved  among 
them  were  gradually  made  sensible  of  the  blessings  attending  a 
better  course  of  life.  From  the  territories  of  Bhopal  to  those  of 
Gujeratj_ along  the  right  bank  of  the  Nerbudda,  and  from  Hindia 
to  the  country  of  Burvvannee,  on  the  left  bank  of  that  river,  a 
spirit  of  industry  and  improvement  was  introduced.  New  vil- 
lages rose  everywhere,  and  forests  which  had  long  been  deemed 
impenetrable  were  fast  cleared,  on  account  of  the  profit  derived 
from  the  timber  required  to  rebuild  villages,  towns,  cities.  Be- 
tween Jaum  and  Mandoo,  the  Bheels  began  to  cultivate  every 
spot,  and  their  hamlets  rose  with  a  rapidity  that  promised  an 
early  and  complete  change  in  the  whole  face  of  that  district,  and 
in  the  manners  of  its  inhabitants.  Bishop  Heber  thought  that 
he  discovered  a  hankering  among  the  "  hill-people  "  after  their 
old  modes  of  life,  and  that  then*  were  many  of  the  Bheels  who 
still  sighed  after  their  late  anarchy,  and  exclaimed,  amid  the  com- 
forts of  a  peaceable  government,  — 

"  Give  us  our  wildness  and  our  woods, 
Our  huts  and  caves  again." 

An  English  party  travelling  from  Mhow  observed  some  Bheels 

i  Malcolm,  Memoir  of  Central  India. 
VOL.  n.  12 


178  HISTORY  OF   THE  PEACE.  [BOOK  L 

looking  earnestly  at  a  large  drove  of  bullocks  which  were  drink- 
ing at  a  ford.  Upon  being  asked  whether  those  oxen  belonged 
to  him,  one  of  the  Bheels  replied  : 1  "  No  ;  but  a  good  part  of 
them  would  have  been  ours  by  this  time,  if  it  were  not  for  you 
English,  who  will  let  nobody  thrive  but  yourselves  ! "  But,  in 
proportion  as  an  efficient  police  was  established,  and  roads,  those 
grand  means  of  civilization,  were  opened  through  the  country, 
the  wild  mountain  Bheels  were  kept  in  check,  and  gradually 
brought  within  the  pale  of  law  and  civilized  life.  But  for  the 
advance  of  British  armies  into  Central  India,  these  very  Bheels 
would  soon  have  attracted  notice  as  a  substantive  power,  for  they 
bad  already  acquired  an  ascendency  over  several  petty  native 
states  ;  and  neither  Mahrattas  nor  Patans,  neither  Arabs  nor  any 
other  kind  of  force  at  the  disposal  of  the  native  potentates  of 
Central  India,  would  have  ventured  to  attack  them  in  their 
mountains,  where  no  booty  was  to  be  expected,  where  nothing 
was  to  be  got  but  hard  blows. 

Sir  John  Malcolm  completely  succeeded  in  clearing  the  coun- 
try of  Arabs  and  Meckranees,  a  desperate  set  of  adventurers 
from  Meckran,  in  Persia,  who,  in  many  instances,  had  made 
themselves  perfectly  independent  of  the  native  Indian  chiefs 
whom  they  pretended  to  serve ;  and  all  the  petty  chieftains  were 
warned  that  to  retain  any  of  these  desperadoes  as  mercenaries, 
or  to  attempt  to  bring  any  of  them  back  to  the  country,  would 
be  considered  as  equivalent  to  a  declaration  of  hostility  against 
the  British  government.  All  other  classes  of  mercenaries,  or  of 
ruffians,  who  looked  only  to  sword  and  spear  for  their  support, 
were  dismissed.  Never  was  the  reign  of  terror  and  anarchy  more 
complete  than  in  1817.  No  contrast  can  be  greater  than  what 
was  presented  in  1821.  The  natives  were  happier  then  than 
afterwards  ;  for  the  recollection  of  the  dangers  and  miseries  they 
had  recently  endured,  increased  the  enjoyment  of  present  secu- 
rity and  good  government.  "  Take  it  all  in  all,"  continues  Mal- 
colm,2 speaking  of  the  period  of  1821,  ''  there  never  was  a  coun- 
try where  the  industrious  classes  of  the  population  were  better 
pleased  with  their  condition  than  they  now  are ;  nor  is  this  feel- 
ing much  checked  by  the  moody  turbulence  of  the  military  classes, 
who  have  been  deprived  of  their  occupation.  Almost  all  those 
who  were  actually  natives  of  the  country  have  been,  in  one  way 
or  other,  considered  ;  while  a  great  proportion  of  the  foreign  mer- 
cenaries, who  constituted  the  chief  part  of  the  disbanded  arm'es, 
have  been  compelled  to  leave  it ;  nor  will  these  mercenaries  ever 
return  to  disturb  its  peace,  while  the  measures  and  principles  by 
which  the  salutary  change  has  been  effected  are  preserved  and 
supported." 

1  Indian  Journal.  2  Memoir  of  Central  India. 


CHAP.  XII. |         ACCESSIONS  OF  TERRITORY.  179 

At  Poonah,  and  generally  in  the  dominions  of  the  ex-Pcishwa, 
Bajee  Rao,  changes  and  reforms  equally  salutary  were  intro- 
duced, principally  through  the  management  of  the  Honorable 
Mountstuart  Elphinstone,  who  had  the  genius  of  a  true  legislator, 
and  all  the  generous  sympathies  of  a  philanthropist.  By  the  con- 
qni'st  of  the  Poonah  territory,  the  British  dominion  and  posses- 
sions were  extended  along  the  western  coast,  from  the  northern 
boundary  of  the  small  province  of  Goa  to  the  mouths  of  the 
Taptee  ;  and  inland  to  the  long-established  western  frontier  of  the 
Nizam,  from  the  junction  of  the  Whurdah  and  Toombudra  to 
the  junction  of  the  Wagoor  and  Taptee.  Such  places  in  Khan- 
deish,  belonging  to  the  Holkar  Mahrattas,  as  fell  within  these 
bounds  were  ceded  to  the  British  by  the  treaty  of  Mundesoor, 
which  Sir  John  Malcolm  had  concluded  after  the  splendid  victory 
at  Maheidpoor.  Some  other  territories  south  of  the  Sautpoora 
range  of  hills  were  also  yielded.  By  exchanges  with  the  Guico- 
war  Kajah,  and  by  arrangements  with  some  minor  princes,  a  con- 
tinuous, uninterrupted  dominion  was  obtained  from  Bombay  to 
Calcutta,  and  from  Madras  to  Bombay.  The  former  Mahratta 
war  having  been  attended  with  the  similar  advantage  of  continu- 
ous dominion  between  Madras  and  Calcutta,  the  communication 
between  the  three  presidencies  might  now  be  considered  as 
complete. 


180  HISTORY   OF   THE   PEACE.  |BooK  I. 


CHAPTER  XIII. 

THE  death  of  the  Princess  Charlotte  took  place  on  the  6th  of 
Meetin  of  November,  1817  ;  parliament  was  opened  by  com  mis- 
pariiament.  sion  on  the  27th  of  January  following.  It  was  the 
27th  Jan.  gixth  and  probably  the  last  session  of  the  fifth  parlia- 
ment of  the  United  Kingdom.  The  prospect  of  lieing  speedily 
sent  back  to  their  constituents  was  not  so  generally  alarming  to 
members  in  those  days  as  it  has  since  become  :  still,  in  ordinary 
circumstances,  a  good  manjr  votes  were  apt  to  be  affected  by  it, 
and  the  last  session  of  the  steadiest  parliament,  when  it  was  cer- 
tain or  likely  that  a  dissolution  was  at  hand,  was  wont  to  be  dis- 
tinguished by  some  little  refractoriness,  showing  itself  both  in  a 
slight  decline  of  the  ministerial  majorities  and  in  the  increasing 
number  of  popular  motions,  which  were  for  the  most  part  more 
favorably  received  than  usual,  as  well  as  more  pertinaciously 
urged. 

The  Prince  Regent's  speech,  which  was  read  by  the  Lord 
Prince  Re-  Chancellor,  after  noticing  in  the  customary  terms  the 
genrs  speech,  continuance  of  His  Majesty's  indisposition,  proceeded 
to  advert,  at  somewhat  greater  length,  but  in  a  phraseology  hard- 
ly less  dry  and  formal,  to  the  death  of  the  Princess.  His  Royal 
Highness,  it  was  declared,  had  been  soothed  and  consoled  by  the 
assurances  he  had  received  from  all  classes,  both  of  their  just 
sense  of  the  loss  they  had  sustained,  and  of  their  sympathy  with 
his  parental  sorrow  ;  and,  amidst  his  own  sufferings,  he  had  not 
been  unmindful  of  the  effect  which  the  sad  event  might  have  on  the 
interests  and  prospects  of  the  kingdom.  Little  cordiality,  it  was 
well  known,  had  for  a  long  time  subsisted  between  the  father  and 
daughter ;  the  natural  inclination  which  the  latter  had  evinced 
to  take  part  with  her  mother  had  estranged  and  alienated  them  ; 
and,  if  the  Princess  had  lived  much  longer,  there  would  probably 
have  been  seen  the  worst  example  that  had  yet  been  exhibited 
of  the  dissension  and  mutual  hatred  that  had  uniformly  divided  the 
wearer  of  the  crown  and  the  heir  apparent  since  the  accession 
of  the  present  family ;  and  the  internecine  war  between  husband 
and  wife  that  soon  after  broke  out,  would  have  been  rendered 
Btill  more  deplorable  and  revolting,  by  their  child  being  in  all 


CHAP.  XIII.]          PRINCE   REGENT'S   SPEECH.  181 

probability  involved  in  it  as  an  active  combatant.  The  prema- 
ture death  of  the  Princess  Charlotte  at  least  saved  herself  and 
all  parties  that  unhappiness.  It  could  not  fail,  nevertheless,  to 
be  keenly  felt  by  her  father.  Even  if  he  had  been  a  hard- 
hearted man,  which  he  was  not,  but  only  a  luxurious  and  selfish 
one,  he  must  have  been  stunned  by  such  a  blow.  His  pride  and 
sense  of  personal  importance,  if  nothing  else,  must  have  been 
severely  wounded  by  it.  His  hope  of  being  the  father  of  a  line 
of  kings  was  gone ;  he  was  become  the  last  of  his  race  ;  his 
blood  would  now  in  the  veins  of  no  future  occupant  of  his 
throne  ;  no  successor  in  a  distant  age  would  look  back  upon  him 
as  a  progenitor;  his  history  would  end  with  his  own  life.  All 
this,  however,  more  calmly  viewed,  would  be  found  to  resolve 
itself  into  his  merely  finding  himself  in  a  new  position,  different 
from,  but  not  in  reality  perhaps  worse  than,  the  one  he  had  lost. 
Accordingly,  it  does  not  appear  that  his  grief  long  retained  the 
bitterness  and  prostration  with  which  it  was  at  first  accompa- 
nied. He  was  so  ill  for  a  short  time  that  his  life  was  con-id- 
ered  to  be  in  danger,  and  was  only  saved  by  copious  bleeding ; 
but  in  little  more  than  three  months  he  had  so  far  recovered  both 
his  health  and  spirits,  as  to  be  able,  at  a  dinner  given  by  the 
Prussian  ambassador,  to  entertain  the  company  with  a  song. 

The  sequel  of  the  speech  was  all  congratulatory.  It  referred 
to  the  improvement  which  had  taken  place,  in  the  course  of  the 
preceding  year,  in  almost  every  branch  of  domestic  history —  to 
the  improved  state  of  public  credit  — to  the  progressive  improve- 
ment of  the  revenue  in  its  most  important  branches;  mentioned 
the  treaties  that  had  been  concluded  with  Spain  and  Portugal, 
with  a  view  to  the  abolition  of  the  slave-trade ;  and  concluded 
by  recommending  to  the  attention  of  parliament  the  deficiency 
which  had  so  long  existed  in  the  number  of  places  of  public 
worship  belonging  to  the  Established  Church,  when  compared 
with  the  increased  and  increasing  population  of  the  country. 
The  important  change  which  had  taken  place  in  the  economical 
condition  of  the  country,  it  was  observed, k'  could  not  fail  to  with- 
draw from  the  disaffected  the  principal  means  of  which  they  had 
availed  themselves  for  the  purpose  of  fomenting  a  spirit  of  dis- 
content, which  unhappily  led  to  acts  of  insurrection  and  treason ;  " 
"  and  his  royal  highness,"  it  was  added,  "  entertains  the  most 
confident  expectation,  that  the  state  of  peace  and  tranquillity,  to 
which  the  country  is  now  restored,  will  be  maintained,  against 
all  attempts  to  disturb  it,  by  the  persevering  vigilance  of  the  mag- 
istracy, and  by  the  loyalty  and  good  sense  of  the  people."  Thus 
did  the  government  natter  itself  that  its  troubles  were  over,  and 
that  i he  year  1817,  in  taking  its  departure,  had  carried  its  evil 
spirit  along  with  it. 


182  HISTORY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [BOOK  L 

Perhaps,  however,  this  apparent  confidence  may  have  been 
partly  assumed  by  ministers,  with  a  view  to  the  defence  of  their 
own  proceedings  in  coping  with  the  late  attempts  of  the  disaf- 
fected. The  best  case  they  could  make  out  for  themselves  would 
be  to  show  that  the  measures  they  had  adopted  had  been  success- 
ful in  putting  down  or  keeping  down  disturbance,  and  that  all 
the  dangers  against  which  the  extraordinary  powers  intrusted  to 
them  had  been  intended  to  provide  were  now  at  an  end.  On 
the  subject  of  these  extraordinary  powers,  their  cessation  or  their 
continuance,  the  speech  said  not  a  word.  But  as  soon  as  it  was 
read,  and  before  the  address  in  answer  had  been  moved,  the  op- 
position in  both  Houses  demanded  the  instant  repeal  of  the  act 
of  last  session  suspending  the  Habeas  Corpus  Act.  On  this, 
ministers  announced  that  it  was  their  intention  to  present  a  bill 
for  that  purpose  on  the  following  day,  and  to  propose  the  sus- 
pension of  the  standing  orders,  as  had  been  done  in  the  case  of 
the  act  to  be  repealed,  that  it  might  pass  without  delay.  The 
bill  was  accordingly  passed  through  the  Lords  on  the  28th,  and 
through  the  Commons  on  the  29th. 

No  amendment  was  moved  to  the  address ;  but  it  gave  rise  to 
some  debate  in  both  Houses.  Lord  Lansdowne  denied 
that  the  recent  trials  had  furnished  evidence  of  the  ex- 
istence of  any  such  conspiracy,  or  general  disposition  to  insurrec- 
tion throughout  the  kingdom,  as  had  been  assumed  by  ministers. 
"  In  the  trials  at  Derby,  where  it  was  the  business  and  the  par- 
ticular object  of  the  Attorney-General  to  prove  that  the  discon- 
tented there  had  a  correspondence  with  others  in  different  quar- 
ters, he  had  completely  failed.  He  could  not  prove  that  in  any 
part  of  the  country  there  had  been  the  slightest  connection  with 
these  conspirators.  This  terrible  conspiracy,  too,  was  suppressed 
without  the  slightest  difficulty  by  eighteen  dragoons."  His  lord- 
ship admitted  that  the  Derby  conspirators  had  been  very  properly 
brought  to  trial,  and  justly  convicted ;  but  this,  he  said,  was  the 
only  thing  ministers  had  to  brin<;  forward  as  an  apology  for  their 
measures.  Still,  he  contended,  "  it  was  not  the  suspension  of  the 
Habeas  Corpus  that  put  down  the  insurrection,  or  the  conspir- 
acy, whichever  it  might  be  called  ;  it  had  been  extinguished  by 
the  due  administration  of  the  law  —  by  apprehending  and  bring- 
ing the  persons  accused  to  trial ;  and  the  same  law  could  have 
l>een  applied  with  equal  efficiency,  though  the  Habeas  Corpus 
Act  had  remained  in  force."  He  maintained  further,  that 
there  was  no  proof  that  the  conspiracy  had  been  at  all  of  a 
political  character,  or  hostile  to  the  institutions  of  the  country. 
"The  whole  disturbance  sprung  from  partial  discontent,  with 
which  the  great  body  of  the  population  of  the  place  where  it 
broke  out  were  untainted.  Even  in  the  very  villages  through 


CHAP.  XIII.]       DEBATES  ON  THE  ADDRESS.  183 

which  the  insurgents  passed,  the  people  ran  away  from  them  ; 
and  in  no  part  of  the  country  was  there  any  trace  to  be  found 
of  the  existence  of  a  conspiracy  to  alter  the  king's  government." 
In  the  Commons,  Sir  Samuel  Romilly,  as  has  been  noticed  in  a 
previous  page,1  went  still  further.  There  could  lie  no  doubt,  he 
observed,  that  the  persons  who  were  convicted  at  Derby,  whether 
guilty  of  treason  or  not,  were  guilty  of  a  capital  crime ;  "  Bran- 
dreth  had  committed  a  murder,  and  those  who  aided  and  abetted 
it  were  in  law  equally  guilty.''  But,  he  went  on,  "  in  his  con- 
science he  believed,  from  the  information  he  had  received,  that 
the  whole  of  that  insurrection  was  the  work  of  the  persons  sent 
by  the  government  —  not  indeed  for  the  specific  purpose  of  fo- 
menting disaffection —  but  as  emissaries  of  sedition  from  clubs 
that  had  never  existed."  If  these  words  be  correctly  reported, 
Sir  Samuel,  while  acquitting  ministers  of  designedly  getting  up 
or  attempting  to  get  up  an  insurrection,  would  appear  to  have 
charged  them  with  being  cognizant  of  the  false  pretences  with 
which  Oliver,  and  the  other  spies  employed  by  them,  are  supposed 
to  have  deluded  and  ensnared  their  victims  —  to  have  concerted 
with  those  dangerous  agents  the  fable  of  the  metropolitan  clubs 
of  which  they  gave  themselves  out  as  the  emissaries.  This,  how- 
ever, as  we  have  already  observed,  is  certainly  not  for  a  moment 
to  be  believed,  nor  probably  is  it  now  a  notion  entertained  by  any- 
body. The  ministers  were  likely  enough  both  to  have  taken  an 
exaggerated  view  of  the  extent  and  object  of  whatever  tendency 
to  di>turbance  existed,  and  to  be  willing  to  make  the  case  appear 
to  be,  or  to  have  been,  as  bad  as  possible ;  but  there  are  no  facts 
or  probabilities  which  entitle  us  to  suppose  that  they  resorted,  or 
were  capable  of  resorting,  to  positive  trickery  and  falsehood,  even 
in  order  to  get  at  the  secret  counsels  of  parties  whom  they  might 
believe  to  harbor  guilty  designs.  Their  indiscretion  and  culpa- 
bility consisted  in  the  recklessness  with  which  they  let  loose  such 
miscreant-:  as  Oliver  among  the  people,  without  taking  sufficient, 
or  apparently  any,  precautions  to  protect  either  themselves  or 
others  from  being  deceived  and  misled  by  their  arts  and  machi- 
nations. 

Mr.  Ward,  writing  to  his  friend  Dr.  Copleston,  from  Vienna, 
on  the  14th  of  February,  after  mentioning  that  he  had   state  of  the 
just  seen  in  the  German  papers  some  meagre  extracts   country, 
from  the  proceedings  at  the  opening  of  parliament,  comments  as 
follows  on  the  political  condition  and  prospects  of  the  country : 
u  As  fair  a  promise  of  an  uninteresting  session  as  a  man  desirous 
of  staying  abroad  can  wish.     The  exaggerated  lamentation  for 
the   poor   Princess  could  not  but  be,  from    its  obvious  purport, 
offensive  to  the  other  branches  of  the  royal  family  ;  and  in  the 
1  See  ante,  p.  125.  . 


184  HISTORY   OF   THE   PEACE.  [BOOK  L 

speech  which  the  minister  has  composed  for  the  Prince  Regent, 
I  think  I  distinguish  somewhat  of  that  feeling  which  it  was 
calculated  to  excite.  The  mention  of  her  is  rather  dry  —  sulky, 
rather  than  sad.  The  country  seems  reviving.  I  have  excellent 
accounts  from  Staffordshire.  At-  one  moment  the  iron  trade  was 
as  brisk  as  ever,  but  since  it  has  a  little  gone  off;  no  distress, 
however."  Afterwards,  having  noticed  the  recent  decease  of 
George  Rose,  and  the  appointment  of  Mr.  F.  Robinson  (after- 
wards Earl  of  Ripoii)  — •  "  a  most  amiable,  gentlemanlike  man  " 
—  as  his  successor  in  the  office  of  Treasurer  of  the  Navy,  he 
adds:  4i  But  this  is  one  of  those  rare  periods  of  tranquillity  and 
prosperity,  when  the  efficient  members  of  the  government  may 
indulge  themselves  in  appointing  whom  they  please  to  what  they 
please.  Time  was  when  the  odds  were  ten  to  one  against  them  ; 
luckily  for  the  country,  as  well  as  for  themselves,  they  have  won 
the  game,  and  they  are  now  enjoying  themselves  in  spending  the 
stakes."  And  this  was  probably  the  general  opinion.  Mr. 
Wyndham  Quin,  the  seconder  of  the  address  in  the  Commons, 
gave  in  his  speech  a  picture  of  the  national  prosperity,  which 
was  almost  without  a  shade.  "  The  country,"  he  said,  ••  feels  an 
increased  circulation  in  every  artery,  in  every  channel  of  its 
commerce.  Last  year  the  fires  were  extinguished  in  most  of  the 
iron-works;  now  they  are  in  full  activity,  and  the  price  of  iron 
has  risen  from  eight  or  nine  to  about  fourteen  pounds  a  ton. 
The  demand  for  linen,  the  staple  of  the  north  of  Ireland,  is  un- 
precedented both  as  to  quantity  and  price.  The  funds  are  now 
80,  last  year  about  63.  Money  is  most  abundant,  and,  when  lent 
at  mortgage  on  good  security,  lowering  in  rate  of  interest,  and  to 
be  had  at  4j  per  cent.  ;  at  the  same  time  that  sales  of  land  are 
effected  at  better  prices  than  last  year."  Gold,  too,  the  orator 
declared,  had  reappeared ;  though,  he  added,  the  little  request  in 
which  it  was  held  seemed  to  evince  that  a  belief  in  the  stability 
of  our  financial  system  was  universal.  Wages  had  advanced  ; 
employment  was  plentiful ;  imports  and  exports  had  increased  ; 
the  revenue  had  improved ;  and  confidence,  finally,  had  returned 
among  all  classes  and  descriptions  of  men. 

The  painter  may  have  been  rather  profuse  of  his  sunshine  ; 
but,  with  due  allowance  for  the  occasion,  this  was  not  perhaps  a 
very  extravagant  representation  of  the  outside  aspect  of  things. 
Now  let  us  look  a  little  deeper,  and  endeavor  to  ascertain  what 
was  the  real  state  of  the  case. 

First,  in  regard  to  the  economical  condition  of  the  country. 
A  great  fall  had  taken  place  in  the  price  of  grain.  The  Gazette 
average  for  wheat,  at  the  end  of  June,  1817,  had  been  1 1  Is.  6^.  ; 
by  the  end  of  September  the  price  in  Mark  Lane  had  declined 
to  74s.  id.  Importation  ceased  in  November.  But  prices  very 


CHAP.  XIII.]          STATE   OF  THE   COUNTRY.  185 

soon  began  to  rise  again.  "  As  the  weather,"  Mr.  Tooke  writes.1 
"during  the  greater  part  of  the  harvesting,  though  favorable  in 
tin;  main,  was  culm  and  foggy,  with  only  .-hort  intervals  in  the 
day  of  brilliant  sunshine,  and  as  the  rains  ag;iin  set  in  before  the 
harvest  was  fully  completed,  the  samples  of  new  wheat,  when 
brought  to  market,  were  found  to  be  damp  and  cold,  and  unfit 
for  immediate  use.  There  being  at  the  same  time  very  little  old 
corn  of  good  quality  remaining,  the  few  samples  of  the  new 
which  were  fit  for  use  were  in  great  demand,  and  fetched  high 
prices."  By  the  close  of  the  year  1817,  the  average  for  wheat 
had  risen  again  to  85s.  4d.  ;  the  ports  opened  in  February, 
1818;  but,  notwithstanding  large  importations,  prices  still  con- 
tinued to  rise.  After  a  rather  wet  spring,  a  drought,  whicli  com- 
menced about  the  middle  of  May,  continued  almost  without  in- 
terruption till  the  middle  of  September,  being  the  most  severe 
that  had  been  experienced  in  England  since  I7i)4.  "Apprehen- 
sions," Mr.  Tooke  continues,  ''  were  in  consequence  entertained 
of  stunted  crops  of  every  description  of  vegetation.  Hay  got 
up  to  9/.  and  10/.  the  load.  Beans,  peas,  turnips,  and  potatoes, 
were  supposed  to  have  totally  failed.  It  was  on  the  ground  of 
anticipations  of  scarcity,  in  consequence  of  this  character  of  the 
season,  that  British  corn  was  bought  freely  on  speculation,  and 
that  many  farmers  were  induced  to  hold  back  their  stocks  ;  many 
per.-nns,  likewise,  importers  as  well  as  dealers  and  farmers,  rea- 
soned erroneously  on  the  operation  of  the  corn-laws,  and  sup- 
posed that,  when  once  the  ports  were  shut,  having  the  monopoly 
of  the  home  market,  they  would  be  secure  of  obtaining,  at  worst, 
within  a  triMe  of  the  opening  price  of  80s."  The  entire  impor- 
tation of  wheat  in  this  year  amounted  to  a  million  and  a  half  of 
quarter.  But  an  unhealthy  speculation  went  on  in  many  other 
articles  as  well  as  in  grain.  The  imports  of  silk,  of  wool,  of 
cotton,  and  various  other  descriptions  of  foreign  produce,  were 
doubled,  and  in  some  cases  tripled,  since  181  6. 2  T.ie  entire 
quantity  of  foreign  and  colonial  produce  imported  in  1818  was 
double  what  it  had  been  in  1816.  and  very  nearly  half  as  much 
again  as  it  had  been  in  1817.  The  so-called  prosperity,  there- 
fore, which  was  beginning  to  dazzle  men's  eyes  when  parliament 
met,  had  much  more  in  it  of  show  than  of  substam-e.  It  was 
for  the  greater  part  mere  speculative  excitement.  "  A  .-tate  of 
prosperity,"  a>  Mr.  Tooke  observes,3  •'  it  doubtless  was,  as  lon^  as 
it  lasted,  to  those  who  were  gaining,  or  appeared  to  be  gaining, 
by  the  rising  markets;  but  to  the  bulk  of  the  population  those 
rising  markets  were  the  occasion  of  privation  and  suffering." 
It  was  not  long  before  symptoms  of  this  suffering  began  to  show 
themselves, 
l  Tooke's  History  of  Prices,  ii.  p.  20.  2  Ibid.  pp.  61,  62.  3  Ibid.  p.  27. 


186  HISTORY   OF   THE  PEACE.  [BOOK  I, 

For  a  time,  however,  there  was  certainly  an  improvement  in 
the  political  temper  of  the  popular  mind.  What  we  may  call 
its  combustibility  was  considerably  reduced.  Bamford  tells  us,1 
indeed,  that  with  the  restoration  of  the  Habeas  Corpus  Act  the 
agitation  for  reform  was  renewed,  and  that  numerous  meetings 
for  the  promotion  of  that  object  were  held  in  various  parts  of 
the  country  ;  but  we  find  no  mention  anywhere  either  of  secret 
combination  among  the  radical  reformers  of  the  earlier  part  of 
the  year  1818,  or  of  proceedings  contemplating  a  resort  to  vio- 
lence—  no  trace  of  conspiracy  any  more  than  of  disturbance, 
of  any  attempt  either  to  defy  or  to  elude  the  law.  Having  re- 
covered the  legal  rights  and  liberties  of  which  they  had  been  for 
a  season  deprived,  the  first  feeling,  even  of  the  generality  of 
those  who  carried  furthest  a  desire  to  amend  the  constitution, 
seems  to  have  been  to  take  their  stand,  nevertheless,  upon  the  con- 
stitution —  somewhat  after  Bacon's  notion  of  the  true  import 
of  the  scriptural  injunction  to  stand  fast  in  the  oil  ways,  which  he 
interprets  as  meaning  ''  that  men  should  make  a  stand  thereupon, 
and  discover  what  is  the  best  way ;  but,  when  the  discovery  is 
well  taken,  then  to  make  progression."  Whatever  may  fiave 
been  the  darker  designs  of  a  few  individuals,  this  was  unques- 
tionably the  present  disposition  both  of  the  working  classes  as  a 
body  and  of  the  great  majority  of  their  leaders.  The  fuel  that 
would  have  been  required  for  a  more  thorough-going  zeal,  or  a 
more  desperate  course  of  action,  was  for  the  present  burnt  out. 
The  nearly  universal  inclination  was  at  least  to  try  what  could 
be  done  with  the  law,  and  by  means  of  the  law,  before  attempt- 
ing to  act  without  it  and  against  it.  So  much,  at  any  rate,  was 
gained  by  the  restoration  of  the  constitution.  Then,  however 
delusive  or  hollow  might  be  much  of  the  apparent  economical 
prosperity  of  the  country,  the  people  were  yet  for  the  moment 
certainly  better  off  than  they  had  been.  If  the  price  of  food  was 
still  high,  and  was  even  ascending,  it  was  notwithstanding  much 
lower  than  it  had  been  in  the  early  part  of  the  preceding  year. 
Employment,  too,  so  long  as  the  tide  of  speculation  was  rising, 
was  really  more  plentiful,  and  wages  had  advanced.  A  spirit  of 
activity,  enterprise,  and  hope,  had  succeeded  to  general  stagna- 
tion and  despondency  in  the  commercial  and  manufacturing 
world  ;  and,  with  both  their  hands  and  their  minds  busied  about 
matters  of  nearer  and  more  natural  concernment,  the  working 
classes  found  their  interest  in  projects  of  political  innovation  con- 
siderably moderated,  and  also  probably  their  views  somewhat 
sobered  down. 

Meanwhile,  the  parliament,  at  once  the  workshop  of  legisla- 
tion and  the  arena  of  party  contest,  went  on  filling  the  air  with 
1  Passages  in  the  Life  of  a  Radical,  i.  p.  16i. 


CHAP.  XIII.]    REPORTS   OF  SECRET   COMMITTEES.          187 

the  din  of  its  labors  and  its  battles.  The  great  subject  of  dis- 
cussion for  the  first  two  months  of  the  session  was  the  pro^^ngs 
conduct  of  ministers  in  the  application  of  their  late  ofpiriia- 
extraordinary  powers.  Here  ministers  themselves  D 
may  be  said  tofliave  taken  the  initiative.  A  green  bag  contain- 
ing papers  relative  to  the  recent  state  of  the  country  was,  by 
command  of  the  Prince  Regent,  presented  in  the  Lords  on  the  2d 
of  February,  and  in  the  Commons  on  the  day  following ;  and 
secret  committees  to  consider  and  report  upon  the  papers  were 
appointed  in  both  Houses.  In  the  Commons,  the  motion  for  the 
appointment  of  the  committee,  which  was  made  by  Lord  Castle- 
reagh  on  the  5th,  gave  rise  to  some  debate ;  but  there  was  no 
division  upon  the  main  question.  The  two  committees  presented 
their  reports,  that  of  the  Lords  on  the  23d,  that  of  the  H^-,,^  of 
Commons  on  the  27th.  As  the  members  of  both  had  secret  corn- 
been,  in  the  point  of  fact,  named  by  the  government,  u 
they  quite  agreed,  of  course,  in  their  view  of  the  matters  which 
had  been  submitted  to  their  consideration.  Referring  to  what 
they  described  as  the  rising  that  had  taken  place  in  Derbyshire 
on  the  9th  of  June,  the  Lords  stated  that  the  insurgents  engaged 
in  that  affair  were  not  formidable  for  their  numbers,  but  were 
actuated  by  an  atrocious  spirit.  The  language  of  many  of  them, 
it  was  affirmed,  and  particularly  of  their  leaders,  left  no  room  to 
doubt  "  that  their  objects  were  the  overthrow  of  the  established 
governnv-nt  and  laws,  extravagant  as  those  objects  were,  when 
compared  with  the  inadequate  means  which  they  possessed."  It 
was  afterwards  admitted,  however,  that  in  the  villages  through 
which  they  passed,  a  strong  indisposition  was  manifested  towards 
their  can  -e  and  projects ;  and  the  insurrection  was  characterized 
as  "  of  small  importance  in  itself,"  and  only  a  subject  of  mate- 
rial consideration  as  confirming  the  statements  in  the  reports  of 
the  secret  committees  of  the  preceding  session.  The  fact  of  this 
actual  insuA-ection,  so  clearly  proved,  and  about  which  there 
could  be  no  dispute,  appeared,  it  was  declared,  "  to  the  committee 
to  have  established,  beyond  the  possibility  of  a  doubt,  the  credit 
due  to  the  information  mentioned  in  the  last  report,  respecting 
the  plans  of  more  extended  insurrection  which  had  previously 
been  concerted,  and  respecting  the  postponement  of  those  plans 
to  the  9th  or  10th  of  June."  Reference  was  also  made  to  the 
movements  in  and  near  Nottingham  on  the  night  of  the  9th  of 
June  ;  to  a  meeting  of  delegates  held  at  Huddersfield  on  the 
6th,  and  a  tumultuous  assemblage  which  took  place  in  that  neigh- 
borhood on  the  night  of  the  8th ;  and  to  the  expectations  proved 
to  have  been  entertained  in  Yorkshire  and  the  other  disturbed 
districts,  of  powerful  support  and  cooperation  from  London  — 
"however  erroneous  such  an  expectation  may  have  been,  with 


188  HISTOEY  OF   THE  PEACE.  [BOOK  I. 

respect  to  the  extent  to  which  it  was  supposed  to  have  existed  " 
—  as  further  confirmatory  of  the  .statements  in  the  same  report. 
But  a  decided  opinion  was  expressed,  that,  not  only  in  the  country 
in  general,  but  in  those  districts  where  the  designs  of  the  dis- 
affected were  most  actively  and  unremittingly  pursued,  the  great 
bod}'  of  the  people  had  remained  untainted,  even  during  the 
periods  of  the  greatest  internal  difficulty  and  distress.  It  was 
intimated,  however,  that  some  of  the  persons  who  had  been  en- 
gaged in  the  late  desperate  projects,  particularly  in  London,  were 
still  active,  and  appeared  determined  to  persevere,  though  with 
decreasing  numbers  and  resources.  The  report  then  proceeded 
to  take  up  the  subject  of  the  arrests  that  had  taken  place  dur- 
ing the  suspension  of  the  Habeas  Corpus  Act.  In  addition  to 
the  cases  of  persons  against  whom  bills  of  indictment  had  been 
found  by  grand  juries,  and  of  those  who  had  either  been  tried  or 
had  fled  from  justice,  warrants,  it  was  stated,  had  been  issued  by 
the  Secretary  of  State  against  ten  persons  who  had  not  been  taken, 
and  against  forty-four  others  who  had  not  been  brought  to  trial. 
Of  these,  seven  had  been  discharged  on  examination  ;  one  had 
been  released  after  being  finally  committed ;  another  had  been 
discharged  on  account  of  illness ;  another  had  died  in  prison. 
All  these  arrests  and  detensions  the  committee  considered  to 
have  been  fully  justified  by  the  circumstances  under  which  they 
had  taken  place.  ''  The  committee,"  it  was  added,  "  understand 
that  up  to  a  certain  period  expectations  were  entertained  of 
being  able  to  bring  to  trial  a  large  proportion  of  the  persons  so 
arrested  and  detained  ;  but  that  these  expectations  have,  from 
time  to  time,  been  unavoidably  relinquished."  On  the  whole,  it 
had  appeared  to  the  committee,  the  report  declared  in  conclusion, 
that  the  government,  in  the  exec-ution  of  the  powers  vested  in  it 
by  the  two  acts  of  the  last  session,  had  acted  with  due  discretion 
and  moderation.  The  report  of  the  committee  of  the  Commons 
travelled  over  the  subject  by  nearly  the  same  road^  its  expres- 
sions, however,  upon  the  different  points  of  the  case,  were  gener- 
ally stronger,  and  it  adverted  to  a  few  additional  facts  or  circum- 
stances. The  outbreak  at  Derby  on  the  night  of  the  9th  of  June 
was  designated  an  insurrection,  and  described  as  "  the  last  open 
attempt  to  carry  into  effect  the  revolution  which  had  so  long 
been  the  object  of  an  extended  conspiracy."  The  trials  at  Derby, 
however,  were  referred  to  as  proving  the  exemplary  conduct  of 
the  mass  of  the  population  in  the  country  through  which  the 
insurrection  passed ;  and  the  committee  had  no  doubt  that  the 
numbers  of  those  who  were  either  pledged  or  prepared  to  engage 
in  actual  insurrection  had  generally  been  much  exaggerated  by 
the  leaders  of  the  disaffected,  from  the  obvious  policy  both  of 
giving  importance  to  themselves,  and  of  encouraging  their  fol- 


CHAP.  XIII.]  BILL   OF  INDEMNITY.  J89 

loAvers.  They  hoped  that  the  time  of  delusion  might  be  passing 
away ;  but  it  was  nevertheless  their  opinion  that  it  would  still 
require  all  the  vigilance  of  government,  and  of  the  magistracy, 
to  maintain  the  tranquillity  which  had  been  restored.  ''Your 
committee,"  the  report  then  proceeded,  "  have  hitherto  applied 
their  observations  to  the  lately  disturbed  district?  in  the  country. 
In  adverting  to  the  state  of  the  metropolis  during  the  same 
period,  they  have  observed  with  conce'rn  that  a  small  number 
of  active  and  infatuated  individuals  have  been  unremittingly 
engaged  in  arranging  plans  of  insurrection,  in  endeavoring  to 
foment  disturbances  that  might  lead  to  it,  and  in  procuring  the 
means  of  active  operations,  with  the  ultimate  view  of  subvert- 
ing all  the  existing  institutions  of  the  country,  and  substituting 
some  form  of  revolutionary  government  in  their  stead."  The 
proselytes,  however,  that  these  leaders  had  gained  to  their  cause 
had  not  been  numerous ;  nor  did  the  mischief  appear  to  have 
extended  beyond  the  lower  order  of  artisans,  nor  to  have  re- 
ceived countenance  from  any  individuals  of  higher  condition.  In 
conclusion,  the  committee  expressed  it  as  their  opinion,  that  the 
vigilance  of  the  police,  and  the  unrelaxed  superintendence  of 
government,  would  probably,  under  present  circumstances,  be 
sufficient  to  prevent  the  agitators  from  breaking  out  into  any 
serious  disturbance  of  the  public  peace  ;  and  they  declared,  with- 
out hesitation,  that  the  discretion  intrusted  to  government  by 
the  acts  of  the  last  session  had  been  exercised  temperately 
and  judiciously,  and  that  ministers  would  have  failed  in  their 
duty,  as  guardians  of  the  peace  and  tranquillity  of  the  realm, 
if  they  had  not  exercised  their  powers  to  the  extent  which  they 
had  done. 

Neither  report  excited  much  debate  when  it  was  presented. 
Mr.  Tierney,  however,  made  some  remarks  upon  that  laid  before 
the  Commons,  which  he  concluded  by  observing  that  ''  it  was 
scarcely  worth  while  to  oppose  seriously  the  motion  for  printing 
a  document  so  absurd,  contemptible,  and  ludicrous."  Mean- 
while, on  the  25th,  a  bill  had  been  brought  into  the  Biiiofin- 
Lords,  entitled  "X  bill  for  indemnifying  persons  who,  dimity 
since  the  •2C>th  of  January,  1817,  have  acted  in  apprehending, 
imprisoning,  or  detaining  in  custody,  persons  suspected  of  high 
treason  or  treasonable  practices,  and  \n  the  suppression  of  tu- 
multuous and  unlawful  assemblies."  In  the  awkwardness  that 
there  would  have  been  in  any  member  of  the  cabinet  proposing 
such  a  measure  of  wholesale  sanction  and  oblivion  for  any  irreg- 
ularities that  might  have  been  committed  by  himself  and  his  col- 
leagues, this  bill  of  indemnity  was  presented  by  the  Duke  of 
Montrose,  who  held  the  household  office  of  master  of  the  horse. 
It  was  warmly  and  repeatedly  debated  in  both  Houses  ;  but  all 


190  HISTORY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [BOOK  I 

the  attacks  of  the  opposition  were  repelled  by  overwhelming 
numbers  on  the  divisions.  In  the  Lords,  the  second  reading  was 
carried,  on  the  27th  of  February,  by  a  majority  of  100  to  33 
votes  ;  and  the  third  reading,  on  the  5th  of  March,  by  a  majority 
of  93  to  27.  If  we  may  judge  by  the  attendance,  no  very  gen- 
eral interest  was  taken  by  their  lordships  in  the  matter ;  the 
number  of  peers  present  on  the  first  of  these  two  divisions  was 
no  more  than  71,  including  only  15  opponents  of  the  bill ;  on  the 
second,  there  were  67  peers  present,  including  12  of  the  opposi- 
tion. The  task  of  supporting  the  measure  was  chiefly  sustained 
by  Lord  Liverpool  and  the  Lord  Chancellor;  the  principal  speak- 
ers on  the  other  side  were  the  Marquess  of  Lansdowne,  Lord 
Erskine,  and  Lord  Holland.  A  long  and  strong  protest  was  en- 
tered on  the  journals  by  these  three  and  seven  other  peers,  in 
which  it  was  argued  that  there  had  manifestly  been  no  widely 
spread  traitorous  conspiracy,  nor  even  anv  extensive  disaffection 
to  the  government ;  that  tranquillity  might  have  been  equally 
restored  by  a  vigorous  execution  of  the  ordinary  laws ;  that  the 
only  legal  effect  of  the  suspension  of  the  Habeas  Corpus  being 
that  it  suspends  the  deliverance  of  the  accused,  ministers  were 
not  entitled  to  a  general  indemnity  for  all  the  arrests  that  had 
been  issued  upon  mere  suspicion,  or  expectation  of  evidence 
which  was  never  produced,  and  for  all  the  numerous  and  long 
imprisonments  that  had  followed,  until  an  open  and  impartial  in- 
vestigation should  have  taken  place ;  that,  from  the  mistaken 
principle  of  the  bill,  illegal  proceedings  were  equally  protected 
by  it,  whether  they  had  been  meritorious  or  malicious ;  and  that 
it  was  not  the  occasional  resort  to  secret  and  impure  sources  of 
evidence  in  cases  of  clear  necessity,  but  the  systematic  encour- 
agement of  that  manner  of  proceeding,  that  was  sanctioned  by 
such  a  bill  as  the  present.  In  the  Commons,  the  first  reading  of 
the  bill  was  carried,  on  the  Hth  of  March,  by  a  majority  of  190 
to  64 ;  the  second  reading,  on  the  10th,  by  89  to  24 ;  the  com- 
mittal, on  the  1 1th,  by  238  to  65  ;  the  third  reading,  on  the  13th, 
by  82  to  23.  Then,  after  one •  or  two  amendments  had  been  neg- 
atived, the  bill  was  passed,  Mr.  Brougham  declaring  that,  al- 
though he  and  his  friends  would  not  again  divide  the  House,  they 
were  as  desirous  at  that  moment  as  ever  to  avow  their  hostility 
to  the  detestable  principle  of  the  measure,  and  Mr.  Tierney  fol- 
lowing him  with  the  declaration  that  he  believed  it  to  be  one  of 
the  most  detestable  measures  ever  introduced  into  parliament. 
The  discussions  throughout  had  been  conducted  in  a  tone  of  con- 
siderable asperity,  rising  at  times  to  passionate  vehemence.  The 
most  remarkable  speeches  made  against  the  bill  were  those  of 
Mr.  Laml»ton  (afterwards  Earl  of  Durham),  Sir  Samuel  Romilly, 
and  Mr.  Brougham.  The  charge  of  the  measure  was  taken  by 


CHAP.  XIII.]     DEBATES.  —  OTHER  PARTY  MOTIONS.        191 

the  Attorney- General  (Sir  "William  Garrow)  ;  the  other  principal 
speakers  in  support  of  it  were  the  Solicitor-General  (Sir  Samuel 
Shepherd),  Mr.  Canning,  and  Mr.  Lamb  (late  Viscount  Mel- 
bourne), who  on  this  occasion  left  his  party,  as  he  had  also  done 
in  voting  for  the  Suspension  Bills  of  the  preceding  session.  Can- 
ning spoke  on  the  motion  for  going  into  committee  ;  and  one  pas- 
sage of  his  speech  raised  a  great  clamor,  which  was  long  kept  up. 
Referring  to  certain  petitioners  who  had  come  before  the  House 
with  complaints  of  harsh  treatment  to  which  they  had  been  sub- 
jected, after  being  arrested  under  the  suspension,  he  designated 
one  of  them,  whose  case  had  been  made  the  theme  of  much  pa- 
thetic eloquence,  as  "  the  revered  and  ruptured  Ogden."  There 
was  some  controversy  at  the  time  as  to  whether  the  latter  epithet 
was  correctly  reported  ;  but  there  is  no  doubt  that  it  was  the 
word  he  employed.  The  fact  was  that  Ogden,  while  he  lay  in 
confinement,  had  been  cured  of  a  rupture  of  twenty  years'  stand- 
ing at  the  public  expense,  for  which,  and  for  his  treatment  in  all 
other  respects,  he  had  at  the  time  expressed  himself  in  the  high- 
est degree  grateful ;  yet  he  had  afterwards  declared,  in  his  peti- 
tion, that  the  disease  had  been  brought  on  the  first  day  of  his  im- 
prisonment in  Horsemonger  Lane  jail,  by  the  ponderous  irons 
with  which  he  was  loaded  on  his  journey  thither  from  Manches- 
ter ;  and  that,  after  being  allowed  to  remain  in  agony  for  sixteen 
hours,  he  had  with  difficulty  prevailed  upon  two  surgeons,  who 
were  sent  for  the  next  morning,  to  perform  an  operation,  under 
which  they  declared  that,  from  his  age,  seventy-four,  there  was 
every  reason  to  apprehend  that  he  would  die.  His  petition  was 
made  up  for  the  greater  part  of  an  elaborate  description  of  the 
said  operation,  garnished  with  every  detail  that  could  most  excite 
horror  and  disgust.  In  reality,  the  operation  had  not  been  per- 
formed till  after  he  had  lain  in  confinement,  and  been  released 
from  his  irons,  for  more  than  four  months.  These  facts  Canning 
stated  to  the  House  in  the  same  sentence  in  which  he  employed 
the  contemptuous  expression  that  was  so  eagerly  taken  hold  of ; 
but  they  were  as  carefully  kept  back  by  the  parties  who  so  per- 
severingly  quoted  and  repeated  his  words  for  their  own  purposes, 
as  they  had  been  by  Ogden  himself.  Yet  their  truth  never  has 
been  called  in  question. 

It  was  not  only  in  the  great   debates  on  the  address  and  the 
Indemnity  Bill  that  ministers  were  put  upon  their  de-   other  party 
fence.     The  opposition  took  advantage  of  many  other   motions, 
opportunities   of  attacking  their  recent   conduct.     Hone's  case, 
and  the  general  question  of  informations  ex  offivio,  were  brought 
before  the  Commons  on  the  3d  of  February  by  Mr.  W.  Smith, 
and  shortly  debated.     On    the    10th  of  the  same   month,  Lord 
Archibald  Hamilton  brought  forward  the  subject  of  the  late  pros- 


192  HISTORY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [BOOK  L 

editions  instituted  against  state-prisoners  in  Scotland,  by  moving 
that  there  should  be  laid  before  the  House  a  copy  of  the  proceed- 
ings on  the  trial  of  Andrew  M'Kinley  before  the  Court  of  Jus- 
ticiary on  the  19th  of  July.  The  motion,  besides  being  intro- 
duced l>y  a  long  speech  from  his  lordship,  was  ably  supported  by 
Mr.  J.  P.  Grant  and  Sir  Samuel  Romilly,  but  was  negatived  on 
a  division  by  a  majority  of  136  to  71.  The  following  d:iy.  an- 
other debate  of  considerable  length  took  place  on  a  motion  of  Mr. 
Fazak<  rley,  that  the  committee  of  secrecy  should  be  instructed 
to  inquire  and  report  whether  any  and  what  measures  had  been 
taken  to  detect  and  bring  to  justice  the  parties  described  in  one 
of  the  reports  of  the  secret  committee  of  last  session,  as  persons 
who  mijfht,  by  their  language  and  conduct,  in  some  instances 
have  had  the  effect  of  encouraging  those  designs  which  it  was  in- 
tended they  should  be  only  the  instruments  of  detecting.  The 
principal  speakers  were,  in  support  of  the  motion.  Lord  Milton 
(now  Earl  Fitzwilliam),  Mr.  Bennet,  Sir  S.  Romilly,  and  Mr. 
Tieriiev  ;  against  it.  Mr.  Bathnrst  (chancellor  of  the  duchy  of 
Lancaster),  Mr.  Wilberfbrce,  the  Solicitor  General,  and  Mr.  Can- 
ning. Wilberforce,  however,  expressed  his  strong  disapprobation 
of  the  employment  of  spies  in  any  circumstances.  The  numbers 
on  the  division  were,  for  the  motion.  52;  against  it.  111.  The 
debate,  however,  brought  out  the  general  course  of  Oliver's  pro- 
ceedings into  tolerably  clear  daylight.  On  the  17th.  Lord  Folke- 
stone (the  present  Earl  of  Radnor)  moved  the  appointment  of  a 
select  committee  to  inquire  into  the  truth  of  the  allegations  of 
Ogden  and  other  persons  who  had  petitioned  the  Flouse,  complain- 
ing of  the  r  treatment  under  the  Habeas  Corpus  Sus|>ension  Act. 
What  they  chiefly  complained  of,  however,  was  their  having  been 
imprisoned  at  all.  His  lordship's  speech  was  answered  by  Lord 
Castlereagh.  Mr.  Wilberforce.  and  the  Attorney-General,  and  the 
motion  was  supported  by  Sir  Francis  Burdett.  Sir  S.  Romilly, 
arid  other  members ;  but  it  was  negatived  on  a  division  by  a  ma- 
jority of  167  to  58.  Two  days  after,  in  the  Lords,  a  motion  by 
the  Earl  of  Carnarvon  to  refer  certain  petitions  of  other  impris- 
oned parties,  which  had  been  presented  to  that  House,  to  the  se- 
cret committee,  was  negatived  without  a  division,  after  speeches 
in  its  favor  from  the  mover,  from  Earl  Grosvenor.  Lord  King, 
and  Lord  Holland ;  and  against  it,  from  Lord  Sidmouth.  Earl 
Bathurst,  and  the  Earl  of  Liverpool.  Finally,  on  the  5th  of 
March,  another  debate  on  the  proceedings  of  the  government 
spies  and  informers  was  brought  on  in  the  Commons  by  Mr.  G. 
Philips,  who,  after  referring  to  certain  petitions — one  of  these 
was  from  Samuel  Bamford  —  presented  on  previous  days,  moved 
that  it  was  the  duty  of  the  House  to  investigate  the  nature  and 
extent  of  the  practices  therein  alleged  to  have  been  pursued  by 


CHAP.  XIII.]     OTHER  BUSINESS  OF  THE   SESSION.  193 

Oliver  and  others.  The  votes  upon  this  motion  were,  ayes,  69  ; 
noes,  162.  In  the  debate  it  was  opposed,  as  the  others  of  a  sim- 
ilar character  or  tendency  had  all  been,  by  Wilberforce,  notwith- 
standing that  Tierney,  who  spoke  before  him,  had  expressed  his 
full  concurrence  in  the  doctrine  that  the  employment  of  spies  and 
informers  by  a  government  was  indefensible  in  any  circumstances, 
and  his  vote  had  been  distinctly  claimed  as  due  to  that  principle, 
which  he  had  been  the  first  to  proclaim.  He  objected  to  the  mo- 
tion as  loose,  vague,  and  indefinite.  Let  a  definite  motion  be 
made,  he  said,  and  he  would  support  it.  He  could  compare  the 
present  motion,  and  some  others  like  it,  to  nothing  else  than  a 
pack  of  hounds  in  full  cry,  scouring  the  fields  and  starting  a  hare 
in  every  corner.  The  most  sober,  and  perhaps  the  most  sensible, 
view  was  that  taken  by  Lord  Stanley  (the  present  Earl  of 
Derby),  who  said,  that  "  he  should  support  the  motion,  but  not  on 
the  ground  that  ministers  were  guilty  of  employing  spies  for  the 
purpose  of  fomenting  disturbances  in  the  country.  His  belief 
was  that  Oliver  and  others  had  been  solely  employed  to  discover 
what  was  doing  in  the  disturbed  districts.  Where  blame  was 
fairly  to  be  cast  on  ministers  was,  he  thought,  in  the  manner  in 
which  those  spies  were  chosen.  Though  ministers  did  not  war- 
rant the  fomenting  of  disturbances,  yet  they  left  it  in  the  power 
of  those  acting  under  them  to  do  so He  thought  minis- 
ters had  been  much  calumniated ;  but  they  would  be  most  so  by 
themselves,  if  they  refused  to  inquire  into  those  acts,  when  in- 
quiry, according  to  their  own  statement,  would  fully  acquit  them 
of  the  charges  laid  against  them." 

Such  was  the  course  of  the  main  struggle  in  which  the  two 
parties  tried  their  strength  ;  for  the  history  of  the  re- 

....  „     .     c          .  J       p  .        Remaining 

maining  business  of  the  session  a  summary  of  results  business 
must  suffice.  Many  subjects  were  taken  up,  and,  no  £^®n 
doubt,  something  was  effected  by  the  mere  discussion 
of  several  of  them  ;  but  very  few  were  actually  legislated  upon. 
Early  in  the  session  a  committee  was  appointed  by  the  Commons 
to  consider  the  state  of  the  poor-laws,  on  the  motion  of  Mr. 
Sturges  Bourne,  who  had  officiated  as  chairman  of  a  similar  com- 
mittee in  the  preceding  session  ;  and  three  bills  were  afterwards 
brought  in  on  the  recommendation  of  the  committee  :  one  for  the 
establishment  of  select  vestries,  another  for  the  general  amend- 
ment of  the  poor-laws,  a  third  for  the  special  regulation  of  the  law 
of  settlement.  But  it  was  soon  agreed  to  postpone  the  Parish 
Settlement  Bill  to  the  next  session ;  the  Poor-law  Amendment 
Bill,  after  having  passed  through  all  its  stages  in  both  Houses, 
was  lost  through  a  disagreement  between  the  Lords  and  Com- 
mons in  regard  to  one  of  its  clauses ;  the  Select  Vestries  Bill 
alone  became  law.  In  the  beginning  of  March,  the  select  com- 
VOL.  n.  13 


194  HISTORY  OF.  THE  PEACE.  [BOOK  L 

mittee  of  the  House  of  Commons  on  the  education  of  the  lower 
orders,  which  had  already  pursued  its  important  inquiries  for  two 
sessions,  was  reappointed  on  the  motion  of  its  chairman,  Mr. 
Brougham.  Besides  two  reports,  which  were  presented  and  or- 
dered to  be  printed  towards  the  end  of  the  session,  it  originated 
a  bill  "for  appointing  commissioners  to  inquire  concerning  chari- 
ties in  England  for  the  education  of  the  poor,"  which  passed  into 
a  law,  though  not  without  suffering  some  curtailment  and  mutila- 
tion in  the  Lords,  where,  indeed,  the  motion  for  going  into  com- 
mittee upon  it  was  opposed  both  by  the  Chancellor  and  Lord 
Redesdale,  but  was  carried  nevertheless  by  a  majority  of  10  to  8. 
In  conformity  with  the  recommendation  contained  in  the  speech 
of  the  Prince  Regent  at  the  opening  of  the  session,  an  act  was 
passed  "  for  building  and  promoting  the  building  of  additional 
churches  in  populous  parishes,"  by  means  of  a  grant  of  one  mil- 
lion sterling,  to  be  applied  under  the  direction  of  commissioners 
appointed  by  the  crown.  Of  various  attempts  made  to  reform 
the  criminal  law,  none  of  any  importance  were  successful,  with 
the  exception  of  a  bill  brought  in  by  Mr.  Bennet  for  establishing 
a  better  system  of  rewarding  persons  who  had  been  instrumental 
in  apprehending  highway-robbers  and  other  offenders ;  and  an- 
other brought  in  by  Mr.  G.  Bankes  for  making  it  illegnl  to  buy 
game,  as  it  already  was  to  sell  it.  Sir  S.  Romilly  carried  a  bill 
through  the  Commons  for  taking  away  the  penalty  of  death  from 
the  offence  of  stealing  from  a  shop  to  the  value  of  five  shillings  ; 
but  it  was  thrown  out  on  the  second  reading  in  the  Lords,  on  the 
motion  of  the  Chancellor.  The  same  potent  voice  prevailed  upon 
their  lordships  to  reject  at  the  same  stage,  by  a  majority  of  31  to 
13,  a  bill  introduced  by  Lord  Erskine,  "  to  prevent  arrests  on  the 
charge  of  libel  before  indictment  found."  In  the  Commons,  how- 
ever, the  government  only  succeeded  in  defeating  a  motion  of  Sir 
James  Mackintosh,  for  the  appointment  of  a  select  committee  to 
inquire  into  the  forgery  of  the  Bank  of  England  notes,  by  pro- 
posing an  address  to  the  Regent,  requesting  his  royal  highness  to 
issue  a  commission  under  the  great  seal  for  the  same  purpose. 
A  select  committee  was  appointed,  on  the  motion  of  Mr.  Sergeant 
Onslow,  to  inquire  into  the  effect  of  the  usury  laws,  which  re- 
ported in  favor  of  their  repeal ;  and  the  honorable  member  <r;ive 
notice  that  he  would  early  in  the  next  session  bring  in  a  bill  to 
carry  that  recommendation  into  effect.  A  bill  for  the  amend- 
ment of  the  election  laws,  brought  in  by  Mr.  Wynn,  was  negatived 
on  the  third  reading  in  the  Commons  by  a  majority  of  51  to  44 ; 
as  was  another  for  the  alteration  of  the  law  relating  to  tithes, 
brought  in  by  Mr.  Curwen,  by  a  majority  of  44  to  15  on  the 
second  reading.  Repeated  discussions  took  place  on  a  bill  intro- 
duced by  Sir  Robert  Peel,  (father  of  the  present  baronet,)  for 


CHAP.  XIIL]  SCOTCH  BURGH  REFORM.  195 

limiting  the  number  of  hours  during  which  apprentices  and  oth- 
ers employed  in  cotton  and  other  mills  and  factories  should  be 
permitted  to  work ;  it  passed  the  Commons,  but  it  was  at  last 
dropped  for  the  present  session,  after  being  committed,  in  the 
Lords,  where  it  had  encountered  a  strong  opposition,  counsel  hav- 
ing been  allowed  by  their  lordships  to  be  heard,  and  evidence  to 
be  brought  forward  against  it.  Mr  J.  Smith  obtained  leave  to 
bring  in  a  bill  for  the  amendment  of  the  bankruptcy  laws  ;  but  it 
appears  not  to  have  been  persevered  with.  Nor  did  anything 
come  of  a  bill  to  amend  the  Copyright  Act  of  1814,  which  was 
brought  in  by  Sir  Egerton  Brydges,  and  carried  over  some  stages 
in  the  Commons.  But  a  select  committee  was  afterwards  ap- 
pointed to  consider  the  subjecf,  oil  the  mot:on  of  Mr.  Wynn, 
which  recommended  that  the  Copyright  Act  should  be  repealed, 
except  in  regard  to  the  delivery  of  one  copy  of  every  new  work 
to  the  British  Museum,  the  other  public  libraries  being  compen- 
sated by  a  fixed  pecuniary  allowance.  On  the  2d  of  June,  Sir 
Francis  Burdett  brought  forward  a  scheme  of  parliamentary  re- 
form in  a  series  of  twenty-six  resolutions  —  the  last  divided  into 
six  heads  —  comprising  the  principles  of  universal  male  suffrage, 
equal  electoral  districts,  elections  all  on  the  same  day,  vote  by 
ballot,  and  a  fresh  parliament  once  in  every  year  at  the  least ; 
the  motion  was  seconded  by  Lord  Cochrane  (the  present  Earl 
of  Dundonald),  who  observed  that  it  might  probably  be  the  last 
time  he  should  ever  have  the  honor  of  addressing  the  House  on 
any  subject,  and  alluded  with  great  feeling,  and  apparently  amidst 
the  general  sympathy  of  the  House,  to  his  own  cruel  case  ;  after- 
wards Mr.  Brougham,  Mr.  Canning,  and  Mr.  Lamb,  all  spoke  at 
considerable  length  ;  and  then,  the  vote  being  taken  on  the  pre- 
vious question,  which  had  been  moved  by  Canning,  the  numbers 
were  found  to  be  106  to  none  —  the  two  tellers,  Sir  Francis 
Burdett  and  Lord  Cochrane,  being  left  alone  on  their  own  side. 
About  a  fortnight  before  this,  Sir  Robert  Heron  had  moved  for 
leave  to  bring  in  a  bill  to  repeal  the  Septennial  Act,  and  the 
motion  had  been  supported  both  by  Sir  S.  Romilly  and  Mr. 
Brougham,  but  it  was  negatived  on  a  division  by  a  majority  of 
117  to  42.  Most  of  the  leading  Whigs  voted  in  the  minority. 

There  was  one  question  about  which  'the  keenest  interest  had 
suddenly  sprung  up  in  Scotland  in  the  course  of  the   Scotch 
preceding  year  —  the  reform   of  the   constitution  of    burgh 
the  burghs  of  that  part  of  the  kingdom.     The  Scotch   r 
burgh  system,  as  it  still  existed,  had  been  established  by  an  act 
of  parliament  passed  in  14G9,  the  general  operation  of  which 
was    to   perpetuate    in    the    government    of  the    burghs,  if  not 
always  the  same  individuals,  at  least  the  same  party,  and  even 
personal  and  family  interests,  by  the  simple  expedient  of  giving 


196  HISTORY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [Booit  L 

the  retiring  office-holders  in  the  corporations,  or  town  councils, 
the  power,  for  the  most  pnrt,  at  the  end  of  each  year,  of  electing 
their-  own  successors.  They  generally,  of  course,  either  re- 
elected  themselves,  or,  where  that  could  not  be  done,  brought  in, 
upon  a  well-understood  and  rarely  violated  arrang  meut,  certain 
confederates  or  doubles  of  themselves,  who,  in  like  manner,  at 
the  end  of  another  twelvemonth,  gave  place  again  to  their  pred- 
ecessors, and  retired  for  a  season  into  private  lite.  Some  con- 
stitutions, or  sets,  as  they  were  called,  were  not  quite  so  close 
as  others  ;  but  the  slight  infusion  that  was  permitted  of  the 
popular  element  was  in  no  case  sufficient  to  give  the  general 
body  of  the  burgesses  any  control  over  the  management  of 
affairs.  The  reform  or  breaking  up  of  this  close  system  had 
been  one  of  the  principal  objects  pursued  by  the  liberal  or  dem- 
ocratic party  in  Scotland,  in  the  political  agitation  that  spread 
over  the  interval  between  the  American  and  French  wars ;  but 
this,  like  the  other  projects  of  change  among  ourselves  which 
the  success  of  the  American  revolution  had  brought  forth  and 
fostered,  was  smothered  for  the  time  in  the  horror  and  terror 
produced  by  that  of  France,  and  in  the  new  interests  and  pas- 
sions with  which  the  new  war  filled  men's  minds.  Now,  however, 
after  the  return  of  peace,  the  former  zeal  upon  this  subject, 
reawakened  by  what  may  be  accounted  an  accident,  was  kept 
alive  and  diffused  by  a  remarkable  concurrence  of  circumstances. 
The  movement  took  its  beginning  from  a  singular  and  unex- 
pected catastrophe  which  befell  the  burgh  of  Montrose.  The 
opposition  party  there,  in  the  early  part  of  the  year  1817,  made 
application  to  the  Court  of  Session,  the  supreme  civil  judicature 
in  Scotland,  to  reduce  or  declare  invalid  the  last  election  of  their 
magistrates,  on  the  ground  of  certain  formal  irregularities,  and, 
probably,  not  a  little  to  their  own  surprise,  obtained  a  decision  in 
their  favor.  The  effect  was  to  leave  the  burgh  not  only  without 
a  town  council,  but  without  any  means  of  creating  one  till  it 
should  get  a  new  charter  from  the  crown.  In  this  state  of  things, 
application  was  made  to  the  privy  council  ;  and  that  body,  or,  in 
other  words,  the  government,  instead  of  merely  reviving  the  old 
constitution,  as  it  might  have  been  expected  to  do,  was  induce  1 
to  hazard  the  experiment  of  allowing  a  certain  number  of  the 
new  magistrates  to  be  elected,  as  the  inhabitants  had  petit. oned 
they  might  be,  by  the  general  body  of  the  burgesses.  This 
example  of  a  poll  election  immediately  produced  the  strongest 
excitement  in  all  the  other  burghs.  Meanwhile  some  other 
events  contributed  to  blow  the  flame.  The  burgh  of  Aberdeen 
found  itself  compelled  to  declare  itself  in  a  state  of  bankruptcy, 
with  liabilities  to  the  amount  of  SOMIC  hundred  thousands  of 
pounds ;  and  the  magistrates  accompanied  this  announcement 


CHAP.  XIII.]  SCOTCH  BURGH  REFORM.  197 

with  an  address,  in  which  they  declared  it  to  he  their  decided 
opinion,  that  the  existing  mode  of  election  of  the  town  council, 
and  the  management  of  the  town's  affairs,  were  radically  defec- 
tive and  improvident,  tending  to  give  to  individuals  or  parties 
an  excessive  and  unnatural  preponderance,  and  to  foster  and 
encourage  a  system  of  secrecy  and  concealment,  under  which  the 
best-intentioned  magistrates  might  he  prevented  from  acquiring 
a  sufficient  knowledge  of  the  true  situation  of  the  burgh.  A 
similar  declaration  was  soon  after  publicly  and  formally  made  by 
the  ruling  party  in  the  burgh  of  Dundee,  where  also  dissatisfac- 
tion with  the  established  system  had  long  been  general,  although 
the  pecuniary  concerns  of  the  burgh  had  not  been  so  grossly 
mismanaged  as  in  Aberdeen.  From  this  time  meetings  of  the 
burgesses  and  inhabitants  began  to  be  held,  not  only  in  Edin- 
burgh, Glasgow,  Perth,  and  the  other  principal  burghs,  but  in 
many  also  of  those  of  inferior  importance  ;  and  the  most  strenu- 
ous measures  were  taken  for  bringing  about  what  the  Aberdeen 
magistrates  had  declared  in  their  address  to  be  imperatively  called 
for  —  some  change  in  the  manner  of  electing  the  town  councils, 
and  the  securing  to  the  citizens  an  effectual  control  over  the  ex- 
penditure of  the  town's  office-bearers.  In  this  state  matters  were 
when  Lord  Archibald  Hamilton  brought  the  subject  before  the 
House  of  Commons  on  the  13th  of  February.  The  professed  ob- 
ject of  his  motion  was  to  obtain  a  copy  of  the  act  or  warrant  of  his 
Majesty  in  council,  dated  in  the  preceding  September,  by  which 
the  poll  election  of  magistrates  at  Montrose  had  been  authorized, 
and  the  set  of  the  burgh  altered.  He  did  not  object  to  the  poll 
election  ;  but  he  contended  that  the  granting  of  the  new  consti- 
tution, while  he  admitted  it  to  be  an  improvement  upon  the  old 
one,  and  a  benefit  to  the  burgh,  was  the  usurpation  of  an  uncon- 
stitutional and  illegal  power  on  the  part  of  the  crown.  By 
this  time,  in  fact,  the  leaders  in  the  movement  had  extended  their 
vie\vs  much  beyond  the  amount  of  alteration  that  had  been  con- 
ceded in  the  case  of  Montrose,  and  had  also  come  clearly  to  see 
that  the  reform  of  the  burgh  system  could  not  be  left  in  the  hands 
of  the  crown,  but  must  be  sought  from  parliament.  Lord  Archi- 
bald acknowledged  that  his  present  motion  was  merely  prelimi- 
nary, and  that  his  intention  was,  having  got  this  point  of  the  legal- 
ity of  the  Montrose  warrant  settled,  to  call  the  attention  of  the 
House  to  a  more  extensive  consideration  of  the  subject  after 
Easter.  The  motion,  however,  after  a  short  debate,  in  the 
course  of  which  ministers  contended  that  Scotch  burgh  reform 
was  little  else  than  parliamentary  reform  under  another  name, 
was  negatived  without  a  division.  Later  in  the  session,  the 
Lord  Advocate  (Mr.  Maconoehie)  brought  in  a  bill  "for  the  better 
regulating  the  mode  of  accounting  for  the  common  good  and 


198  HISTORY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [BOOK  I. 

revenues  of  the  royal  burghs  of  Scotland,  and  for  controlling  and 
preventing  the  undue  expenditure  thereof."  But  this  proposed 
measure  was  found  to  give  no  satisfaction  to  any  party  ;  and  the 
bill,  after  being  read  only  a  first  time,  was  withdrawn.  Nor  did 
Lord  Archibald  Hamilton  introduce  the  subject  again  in  the 
present  session. 

Unsuccessful  attempts  were  also  made  by  Lord  A.  Hamilton 
other  mo-  to  urge  on  the  government  the  abolition  of  the  Scotch 
tions.  commissary  courts,  in  conformity  with  the  recommen- 

dation of  a  commission  of  inquiry  appointed  by  royal  warrant 
in  1808  ;  by  General  Thornton,  to  repeal  the  declarations  re- 
quired to  be  taken  in  certain  cases  against  the  belief  of  transub- 
stantiation,  and  asserting  the  worship  of  the  Church  of  Rome  to 
be  idolatrous ;  and  by  Dr.  Phillimore,  to  amend  the  Marriage 
Act  of  1753,  in  respect  of  its  making  the  marriages  of  infants 
by  license,  without  consent  of  parents  or  guardians,  void  ab  initio 
if  a  suit  for  the  avoidance  of  them  should  be  commenced  at  any 
time  during  the  lives  of  the  parties.  The  principal  taxes  that 
were  made  the  subjects  of  assault  were  the  salt  duties,  the  leather 
tax,  and  the  Irish  window  tax.  Ministers  made  no  opposition  to 
Mr.  Calcraft's  motion  for  a  select  committee  on  the  salt  duties ; 
and  a  bill  afterwards  brought  in  by  the  honorable  member,  on 
the  recommendation  of  the  committee,  for  reducing  the  duty  on 
rock-salt,  used  for  agricultural  purposes,  from  10/.,  to  which  it 
had  been  reduced  in  the  preceding  session,  to  o/.  per  ton,  was 
passed.  Ministers  also  offered  Lord  Althorpe  a  committee  on 
his  moving  for  leave  to  bring  in  a  bill  to  repeal  the  additional 
duty  upon  leather  imposed  in  1812,  against  which  numerous 
petitions  had  been  presented ;  but  his  lordship  persisted  in  going 
to  a  division,  and  the  motion  was  carried  by  a  majority  of  94  to 
84.  The  bill,  however,  was  thrown  out  on  the  second  reading, 
the  numbers  on  that"  occasion  being  —  ayes,  130;  noes,  136. 
A  committee  to  consider  the  expediency  of  repealing  the  Irish 
window  tax  was  moved  for  by  Mr.  Shaw ;  but,  after  a  debate  of 
some  length,  the  motion  was  negatived  by  67  votes  to  51.  Fi- 
nally, it  may  be  noticed,  in  connection  with  this  subject,  that  after 
several  remonstrances  from  Mr.  Brougham,  ministers  agreed  to 
see  that  proper  measures  were  taken  for  carrying  into  effect  the 
destruction  of  all  returns  under  the  abolished  income  tax.  This 
had  been  promised  by  the  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer  two  years 
before,  but  the  directions  then  issued  had,  it  appeared,  been  very 
imperfectly  complied  with. 

The  budget  was  brought  forward  by  the  Chancellor  of  the 
Exchequer  on  the  20th  of  April.  The  greater  part  of 

The  budget.      ,,  ',        .        ,,    c  f. 

me  navy,  army,  ordnance,  anu  miscellaneous  estimates 
bad  been  already  voted  ;  and  Mr.  Vansittart  now  stated  that  the 


CHAP.  XIII.]  BANK  RESTRICTION  ACT.  199 

vote  for  the  army,  which  had  last  year  been  9,412,373£,  would  this 
}  ear  he  8,!)70,<)00£  ;  that  the  vote  for  the  navy,  which  had  last  year 
been  7,596,022/.,  would  this  year  be  6,456,800/. ;  that  the  vote  for 
tin-  ordn  mce,  which  had  last  year  been  1,270,G90/.,  would  this  year 
be  l,24o,600£ ;  that  the  miscellaneous  estimates,  which  last  year 
amounted  to  1,795,000/.,  would  this  year  amount  to  1,720,000/.  — 
without  including,  however,  the  million  granted  for  the  building  of 
churches,  which  was  to  be  provided  for  by  an  issue  of  exchequer 
bills.  Altogether,  with  the  addition  of  2,500,000/.  for  the  inter- 
est on  exchequer  bills  and  a  sinking  fund  attached  to  them,  and 
one  or  two  extraordinary  items,  the  total  amount  of  the  regular 
supplies  for  the  service  of  the  year  would  be  21,011,000^,  the 
amount  for  the  last  year  having  been  22,304,0917.  This  was, 
of  course,  exclusive  of  the  interest  of  the  debt,  which  at  this 
time  was  not  quite  30,000,000/.  No  new  taxes  were  proposed, 
nor  the  repeal  or  reduction  of  any  old  ones.  The  principal 
feature  of  the  finance  minister's  announcement  was  a  scheme  for 
forming,  out  of  the  3  per  cent,  stock,  a  new  stock  bearing  interest 
at  3£  per  cent.,  by  which  a  sum  of  3,000,000/.  would  be  raised 
for  the  public  service  of  the  year.  It  was  proposed  also  to  fund 
27,000,000^.  of  the  floating  debt,  which  had  accumulated  to  the 
inconvenient  amount  of  about  63,000,000^ 

The  session  had  scarcely  commenced  when  ministers  were 
asked  in  both  Houses  whether  it  was  intended  that  BankRestric- 
the  resumption  of  cash  payments  by  the  bank  should  tionAct- 
really  take  place  on  the  5th  of  July,  as  then  fixed  by  law.  In 
reply  it  was  stated  that  the  bank  had  made  ample  preparation 
for  resuming  its  payments  in  cash  at  the  time  fixed  by  parlia- 
ment, and  that  the  government  knew  of  nothing  in  the  internal 
state  of  the  country,  or  in  its  political  relations  with  foreign 
powers,  which  would  render  it  expedient  to  continue  the  restric- 
tion ;  "  but  that  there  was  reason  to  believe  that  pecuniary  ar- 
rangements of  foreign  powers  were  going  on,  of  such  a  nature 
and  extent  as  might  probably  made  it  necessary  for  parliament 
to  continue  the  restriction  so  long  as  the  immediate  effects  of 
those  arrangements  were  in  operation."  This  explanation  was 
treated  by  the  opposition  with  great  contempt.  "  The  truth  was, 
as  it  appeared  to  him,"  Mr.  Tierney  observed,  "  that  there  were 
some  persons  in  this  country  very  much  disposed  to  continue  the 
restriction  if  they  could  find  any  excuse  for  it;  and  as  such 
excuse  did  not  offer  itself  at  home,  they  looked  abroad  for  it." 
In  the  other  House,  Lord  King  declared  that  the  reason  assigned 
by  ministers  "  was  so  extraordinary  in  itself,  and  so  unintelligible 
to  the  country,  it  being  impossible  to  conceive  how  in  reality  the 
negotiation  of  foreign  loans  could  tend  to  prevent  the  resumption 
of  cash  payments  by  the  Bank  of  England,  that  it  could  only  be 


200  HISTOEY   OF   THE  PEACE.  [Boos  I. 

considered  as  the  ostensible  reason,  and  not  the  real  one."  Never- 
theless there  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  explanation  thus  denounced 
was  perfectly  correct.  Mr.  Tooke  shows 1  that  by  the  latter  part 
of  1817  the  value  of  bank-paper  had  been  virtually  restored,  and 
that  the  bank  was  then  in  a  position  to  resume  cash  payments. 
"  And  the  directors, "  he  adds,  "  so  far  from  taking  advantage  of 
the  prolonged  term  of  the  restriction,  were  adopting  measures 
for  anticipating  it ;  for  in  the  months  of  April  and  September, 
1817,  they  actually  undertook  by  public  notice  to  pay,  and  did 
pay,  a  large  proportion  of  their  notes  in  coin."  It  is  understood 
that  the  payments  in  gold  in  pursuance  of  these  notices  exceeded 
five  millions  sterling.  Mr.  Tooke  blames  the  bank  and  the 
government  for  cooperating  to  reduce  the  rate  of  interest  on 
exchequer  bills  in  the  summer  of  1817,  while  it  was  notorious 
that  negotiations  were  going  forward  for  the  raising  of  loans  to 
a  very  large  amount  by  France  and  others  of  the  continental 
states.  "  The  government,"  he  argues,  "  ought  to  have  taken 
the  opportunity  of  the  comparatively  high  price  of  stocks  in  the 
summer  of  1817,  to  have  diminished  instead  of  increasing  the 
unfunded  debt ;  and  the  bank,  instead  of  extending  its  advances 
upon  exchequer  bills  at  a  reduced  interest,  ought,  witli  a  view  to 
counteract  the  effect,  which  would  otherwise  be  inevitable,  of  the 
tendency  of  British  capital  to  investment  in  foreign  loans,  not 
only  not  to  have  extended  its  advances,  but  to  have  diminished 
its  existing  securities."  But  now  commenced  both  a  depression 
of  the  exchanges  and  a  diminution  of  the  circulation  from  the 
operation  of  a  fresh  set  of  disturbing  causes.  "  Foremost  among 
these  causes,"  Mr.  Tooke  continues,  "  doubtless  were  the  large 
loans  negotiated  for  the  French  and  Russian  governments,  the  high 
rate  of  interest  granted  by  them,  and  the  comparatively  low  rate 
in  this  country,  holding  out  a  great  inducement  for  the  transmis- 
sion of  British  capital  to  the  continent.  The  importations  of 
corn  in  the  latter  part  of  1817,  and  through  the  whole  of  1818, 
were  on  a  large  scale  and  at  high  prices,  our  ports  being  then 
open  without  duty.  And  there  was  at  the  same  time,  as  has 
before  been  noticed,  a  very  great  increase  of  our  general  im- 
ports ;  while  a  great  part  of  the  exports  of  1817  and  1818  were 
speculative,  and  on  long  credits,  the  returns  for  which,  therefore, 
would  not  be  forthcoming  till  1819  and  1820.  Under  these 
circumstances  it  is  rather  matter  of  surprise  that  the  exchanges 
were  not  more  depressed,  than  that  they  were  so  much  depressed 
in  1818."  For  this  state  of  things  the  bank  and  the  government 
might,  indeed,  have  made  preparation ;  they  ought  at  least  to 
have  abstained  from  pursuing  a  course  which  gave  additional 
facilities  to  the  negotiation  of  the  foreign  loans  ;  but,  that  mis- 
1  History  of  Prices,  ii.  p.  50,  &c. 


CHAP.  XIII.]  ROYAL  MARRIAGES.  201 

chief  having  been  done,  the  depression  of  the  exchanges  thereby 
produced  certainly  furnished  a  good  reason  for  the  postponement 
of  the  resumption.  A  bilk  was  eventually  brought  into  the 
House  of  Commons  for  continuing  the  restriction  till  the  oth 
of  July,  1819  ;  various  amendments  were  moved  in  both  Houses, 
but  were  only  supported  by  insignificant  minorities,  and  the  bill 
was  passed  in  the  end  of  May.  The  measure,  however,  drew 
two  long  protests  from  Lord  Lauderdale,  in  one  of  which  his 
lordship  declared  the  ground  on  which  it  had  been  introduced, 
and  supported  —  that  the  raising  of  foreign  loans  would  drain 
this  country  of  its  coin  —  to  be  "  an  opinion  founded  on  gross 
misconception  and  ignorance  of  the  subject." 

Some  rather  remarkable  proceedings  took  place  in  the  course 
of  the  session  in  relation  to  the  royal  family,  no  fewer  ROJai  mar- 
than  four  members  of  which  were  married  in  the  riages- 
earlier  part  of  this  year.  The  first  of  the  four  marriages  was 
that  of  the  Princess  Elizabeth,  his  majesty's  third  daughter,  to 
His  Serene  Highness  Frederic  Joseph  Louis  Charles  Augustus, 
Landgrave  and  Hereditary  Prince  of  Hesse  Homburg,  on  the  7th 
of  April.  In  this  case  the  two  Houses  of  Parliament  were  asked 
only  to  offer  their  congratulations  to  the  Regent,  the  Queen,  and 
the  new-married  couple.  As  the  bride  had  nearly  completed  her 
forty-eighth  year,  her  marriage  could  not  be  expected  to  contrib- 
ute anything  towards  continuing  the  line  of  the  old  King,  who 
now,  notwithstanding  his  fifteen  sons  and  daughters,  twelve  of 
whom  were  still  alive,  was  left  without  any  descendant  beyond 
the  first  generation.  A  few  days  afterwards,  however  —  on  the 
13th  of  April  —  Lord  Liverpool  brought  down  a  message  from 
the  Regent  to  the  Lords,  and  Lord  Castlereagh  to  the  Commons, 
in  which  his  royal  highness  informed  the  House  that  treaties  of 
marriage  were  in  negotiation  between  the  Duke  of  Clarence  and 
the  Pr  nce.ss  (Adelaide  Louisa  Theresa  Caroline  Amelia)  of  Saxe 
Meiningen,  eldest  daughter  of  the  late  reigning  Duke  of  Saxe 
Meiningen;  and  also  between  the  Duke  of  Cambridge  and  the 
Princess  (Augusta  Wilhelmina  Louisa)  of  Hesse,  younge-t 
daughter  of  tiie  Landgrave  Frederic,  and  niece  of  the  Elector 
of  Hesse;  and  which  went  on  to  say,  that  after  the  afflicting 
calamity  which  the  Prince  and  the  nation  had  sustained  in  the 
loss  of  the  Princess  Charlotte,  his  royal  highness  was  fully  per- 
suaded that  the  House  of  Commons  would  feel  how  essential  it 
was  to  the  best  interests  of  the  country,  that  he  should  be  en- 
abled to  make  a  suitable  provision  for  such  of  his  royal  brothers 
as  should  have  contracted  marriages  with  the  consent  of  the 
crown.  This  last  expression  was  designed  to  intimate  both  that 
the  proposed  provision  was  not  to  be  extended  to  the  Duke  of 
Sussex,  and  that  it  was  to  comprehend  the  Duke  of  Cumberland, 


202  HISTORY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [BOOK  I 

who  had  been  married,  three  years  ago,  to  the  Princess  Frederics 
Sophia  Charlotta,  daughter  of  Frederic  V.,  Duke  of  Mecklen- 
burg Strelitz,  and  previously  the  wife,  first,  of  Frederic  Louis 
Charles,  Prince  of  Prussia,  from  whom  she  had  been  divorced, 
and,  secondly,  of  Frederic  William,  Prince  of  Solms  Braunfels. 
The  Duchess  of  Cumberland  was  niece  to  the  Queen ;  but  for 
some  unexplained  reason,  her  majesty  refused  to  receive  her 
royal  highness  after  she  came  over  to  this  country.  It  was  gen- 
erally understood  that  the  refusal  was  occasioned  by  the  conduct 
of  the  Duchess  in  breaking  off  a  previous  negotiation  of  marriage 
with  the  Duke  of  Cambridge.  The  Duke  of  Cumberland,  how- 
ever, was  not  popular ;  and  when,  soon  afier  his  marriage,  a  bill 
was  brought  in  by  ministers  to  grant  him  an  additional  allowance 
of  6000/.  a  year,  advantage  was  taken  of  the  Queen's  disapproba- 
tion, and  the  bill,  which  had  been  resisted  by  formidable  minorities 
both  on  the  motion  for  leave  to  bring  it  in  and  on  the  first  reading, 
was  thrown  out  on  the  second  reading  by  a  majority  of  one,  the 
numbers  being  126  against  125.  It  was  hoped  that  now  this  decis- 
ion might  be  reversed.  Considerably  larger  sums  were  originally 
contemplated  ;  but  ministers  were  induced,  by  strong  manifesta- 
tions of  adverse  feeling  both  in  and  out  of  parliament,  to  pause 
and  modify  their  proposition ;  and  they  determined  to  ask  only 
an  additional  10,00()/.  a  year  for  the  Duke  of  Clarence,  and 
6000/.  for  the  Dukes  of  Cumberland  and  Cambridge,  and  for 
the  Duke  of  Kent  if  he  too  should  marry.  When  Lord  Castle- 
reagh,  on  the  loth,  moved  a  resolution  to  the  effect  that  10,UOU£ 
a  year  should  be  granted  to  the  Duke  of  Clarence,  Mr.  Can- 
ning observed  that  in  voting  for  this  sum  "'  they  would  vote  only 
for  one  half  of  the  sum  originally  proposed,  a  sum  the  propriety 
of  which  both  his  noble  friend  and  himself  thought  then,  and 
still  thought,  maintainable  by  fair  argument,  but  which  they  had 
no  hesitation  in  surrendering  to  the  expressed  opinion  of  that 
House."  But  on  Mr.  Sunnier  moving  that  ihe  10,00(M.  should 
be  reduced  to  6000/.,  this  amendment  was  carried  by  a  majority 
of  193  to  184.  "  The  result,"  it  is  stated,1  k'  was  received  with 
loud  shouts  of  approbation  ;  amidst  which  Lord  Castlereagh  rose 
and  observed,  that,  since  the  House  had  thought  proper  to  refuse 
the  larger  sum  to  the  Duke  of  Clarence,  he  believed  he  nrght 
say  that  the  negotiation  for  the  marriage  might  be  considered  at 
an  end."  On  the  following  day,  his  lordship  informed  the  House 
that  the  duke  declined  availing  himself  of  the  inadequate  sum 
which  had  been  voted  to  him.  He  then  proposed  the  6000/.  a 
year  for  the  Duke  of  Cambridge,  which  was  carried,  but  not 
till  after  a  debate  of  some  length,  and  a  division,  in  which  the 
numbers  were  177  for  the  resolution,  and  95  against  it.  Rising 
1  Hansard's  Parliamentary  Debates,  xxxviii.  p.  114. 


CHAP.  XIII.]    NEW  GRANTS  TO   THE  PRINCES.  203 

again,  his  lordship  moved  that  a  similar  grant  should  be  made  to 
the  Duke  of  Cumberland ;  but  tin's  motion,  after  a  warm  debate, 
was  negatived  by  a  majority  of  148  to  136.  "  Loud  cheering," 
we  are  told,1  "  took  place  in  the  House  when  the  result  of  the 
division  was  known."  On  the  13th  of  May,  another  message 
was  brought  down  announcing  that  the  Prince  Regent  had  given 
his  consent  to  a  marriage  between  the  Duke  of  Kent  and  Her 
Serene  Highness  Mary  Louisa  Victoria,  daughter  of  the  Duke 
of  Saxe  Coburg  Saalfeld,  widow  of  Enrich  Charles,  Prince  of 
Leiningen,  and  sister  of  Prince  Leopold.  Of  all  these  royal 
marriages  this  was  the  one  which  the  heart  of  the  country  went 
most  along  with  ;  the  Duke  of  Kent  had  attached  himself  to  the 
popular  party,  and  the  relationship  of  the  lady  to  Prince  Leo- 
pold and  the  lamented  Princess  Charlotte  was  of  itself  sufficient 
to  awaken  a  strong  interest  in  her  favor.  If  the  nation  might 
have  had  its  wish,  it  would  have  been  from  the  first  that  that 
should  happen  which  has  actually  fallen  out,  that  to  the  issue  of 
this  marriage  the  inheritance  of  the  crown  should  descend.  Yet 
even  the  grant  of  the  additional  6000/.  a  year  to  the  Duke  of 
Kent  was  stoutly  opposed  in  the  Commons;  51  members,  among 
whom  were  Lord  Althorpe,  Mr.  Coke  of  Norfolk,  Lord  Folke- 
stone, Mr.  Lambton,  and  Mr.  Tierney,  voting  against  it.  The 
number  of  votes  in  its  favor,  however,  was  more  than  four  times 
as  many.  Meanwhile,  the  public  had  learned,  with  some  sur- 
prise, that  the  marriage  of  the  Duke  of  Clarence  was  to  take 
place  after  all.  That  of  the  Duke  of  Cambridge  was  solemnized 
on  the  1st  of  June  ;  those  of  the  Dukes  of  Clarence  and  Kent 
on  the  13th  of  the  month  following.  In  connection  with  the 
subject  of  the  royal  family,  it  may  be  here  mentioned,  that  the 
portion  of  the  Regency  Act  relating  to  the  custody  of  the  King's 
person  was  this  session  altered  by  a  short  bill  which  minis- 
ters introduced,  repealing  the  clause  which  made  it  necessary 
that  parliament  should  reassemble  immediately  in  case  of  the 
death  of  the  Queen,  and  also  adding  four  members  to  the  council 
appointed  to  assist  her  majesty.  As  at  first  dra\vn  up,  the  bill 
gave  the  nomination  of  the  four  new  members  to  her  majesty ; 
but  it  was  ultimately  conceded  that  they  should  be  appointed  by 
parliament.  In  other  words,  their  names  were  inserted  in  the 
bill.  What  occasioned  this  measure  was  an  illness  with  which 
the  Queen  had  been  attacked  ;  but  she  had  nearly  recovered 
before  the  bill  passed. 

On  the  subject  of  the  slave-trade,  acts  were  passed  for  carry- 
ing into  effect  a  treaty  with  Sp:»in,  and  a  convention 
with  Portugal.    The  Spanish  treaty,  signed  at  Madrid 
on  the  23d  of  September  in  the  preceding  year,  went  the  full 
i  Hansard's  Parliamentary  Debates,  xxxviii.  p.  151. 


204  HISTOKY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [Boon  I. 

length  of  declaring  the  traffic  in  slaves  illegal,  from  the  30th  of 
May,  1820,  throughout  the  entire  dominions  of  his  Catholic  maj- 
esty, and  of  recognizing  the  right  of  search  on  the  part  of  the 
two  contracting  powers,  to  be  exercised  by  vessels  of  war,  pro- 
vided with  special  instructions  for  that  purpose.  It  was  stipu- 
lated that  the  sum  of  400,000/.  should  be  paid  by  Great  Brit- 
ain to  Spain,  in  compensation  for  losses  sustained  by  the  subjects 
of  his  Catholic  Majesty  engaged  in  the  traffic.  The  convention 
with  Portugal,  a  much  more  important  power  in  reference  to 
this  matter,  did  not  accomplish  nearly  so  much  for  the  interests 
of  humanity  and  civilization  ;  all  that  his  Most  Faithful  Majesty 
would  consent  to  do  being  to  abolish  the  traffic  in  slaves  carried 
on  by  his  subjects  in  any  part  of  the  coast  of  Africa  lying  north 
of  the  equator.  This  was  done  by  a  royal  alvara,  or  law,  given 
at  Rio  Janeiro,  on  the  6th  of  May  in  the  present  year.  The 
subject  of  the  condition  and  treatment  of  the  slaves  in  several  of 
our  West  India  colonies  was  also  brought  before  the  House  of 
Commons  in  a  succession  of  motions  by  Sir  S.  Romilly ;  none  of 
which  were  opposed,  but  which  resulted  in  nothing  except  the 
production  of  some  papers,  and  the  appointment  of  a  select  com- 
mittee to  consider  certain  cases  of  cruelty  alleged  to  have  taken 
place  in  the  island  of  Nevis. 

The  principal  subject  which  occupied  parliament  during  the 
last  six  weeks  of  the  session,  was  the  renewal  of  the 
Alien  Act.  This  measure,  differing  altogether  from 
the  Alien  Act  which  subsisted  during  the  war,  had  been  first  in- 
troduced after  the  peace  of  Amiens  in  1802.  It  no  longer  fixed 
the  residence  of  aliens,  but  only  reserved  to  government  and  to 
magistrates  the  power  of  removing  any  of  them  who  might 
become  objects  of  suspicion.  Nor  had  it  ever  been  enacted  as  a 
permanent  law.  When  it  was  reintrodueed,  after  the  peace  in 
1814,  its  duration  had  been  limited  to  two  years  ;  and  in  1816  it 
had  been  renewed  ibr  the  same  term.  On  the  latter  occasion, 
however,  it  had  encountered  the  strongest  opposition  in  its  pas- 
sage through  parliament.  And  now,  when  it  was  proposed  to  be 
continued  for  two  years  more,  the  fight  against  it  was  resumed  by 
the  Whig  party,  and  the  ground  contested  with  the  greatest  obsti- 
nacy at  every  step.  Its  opponents,  in  the  Commons,  even  divided 
the  House  on  the  motion  for  leave  to  bring  in  the  bill,  meeting 
the  majority  of  55  votes  in  its  favor  with  a  minority  of  18.  This 
was  on  the  5th  of  May.  Hostile  motions  for  papers  were  then 
made  by  Mr.  Lambton  in  the  one  House,  and  by  Lord  Holland 
in  the  other,  Mr.  Lambton  pushing  his  to  a  division,  when  30 
opposition  patriots  were  counted  against  68  ministerialists.  Ou 
the  15th,  the  second  reading  in  the  Commons,  supported  by  97 
votes,  was  resisted  by  35.  Another  division  took  place  on  the 


CHAP.  XIII.1  THE  ALIEN  ACT.  205 

motion  for  going  into  committee  ;  and  several  more  in  committee. 
On  the  22d,  after  it  had  been  read  a  third  time,  first  Mr. 
Brougham,  and  then  Sir  S.  Romilly,  divided  the  House  on 
clauses  which  they  proposed  to  insert  in  the  bill ;  nor,  when  both 
had  been  negatived,  was  even  the  last  question  of  all,  "  That  the 
bill  do  pass,"  suffered  to  be  carried  without  another  division 
On  this  concluding  trial  of  strength,  the  numbers  were  94 
against  29.  The  first  discussion  of  the  measure  in  the  Lords 
took  place  on  the  motion  for  going  into  committee,  which  was 
made  by  Lord  Sidmouth  on  the  1st  of  June.  But  by  this  time 
a  discovery  had  been  made.  It  had  been  found  that,  by  the  act 
of  the  Scotch  parliament,  passed  in  1685,  for  establishing  the 
Bank  of  Scotland,  all  foreigners  holding  shares  to  a  certain 
amount  in  that  bank  became  thereby  naturalized  subjects  of 
Scotland,  while  by  the  Act  of  Union  all  subjects  of  Scotland 
were  naturalized  in  England.  Lord  Sidmouth,  therefore,  an- 
nounced, that  he  should  propose  the  insertion  of  a  clause  to  pre- 
vent the  object  of  the  bill  from  being  defeated  by  parties  taking 
advantage  of  that  enactment.  The  motion  for  going  into  com- 
mittee was  carried  by  a  majority  of  34  to  15  ;  and  then,  the 
clause  by  which  it  was  proposed  to  meet  the  old  Scotch  act,  hav- 
ing been  reduced  by  considerable  tinkering  to  what  was  consid- 
ered a  proper  form,  was  carried  by  another  of  42  to  20.  It 
deprived  all  foreigners  of  the  privilege  of  naturalization  acquired 
by  holding  bank-shares,  who  had  purchased  their  shares  since 
the  28th  of  April.  The  parties  whom  it  affected  petitioned  the 
next  day  to  be  heard  by  council  against  this  retrospective  dis- 
qualification ;  but  that  was  refused,  after  another  division  ;  and, 
the  standing  orders  having  been  suspended,  on  which  question 
there  were  three  more  divisions,  the  bill,  with  the  added  clause, 
was  the  same  day  read  a  third  time  and  passed.  But  when  it 
was  sent  down  to  the  Commons  three  days  afterwards,  it  was 
met  there,  not  only  by  another  petition  from  the  parties  affected 
by  the  disqualifying  clause,  but  by  an  objection  founded  upon  the 
privileges  of  the  House.  It  was  observed  that  one  right  which 
foreigners  acquired  upon  being  naturalized  was  to  import  goods 
into  the  country  at  lower  duties  than  aliens ;  and  that,  therefore, 
the  Lords  had  by  their  amendment  introduced  a  money-clause 
into  the  bill — an  interference  on  the  part  of  the  other  House 
which  the  Commons  never  submitted  to.  On  the  Speaker  being 
appealed  to,  he  gave  it  as  his  opinion  that  this  objection  was  fatal 
to  the  clause ;  upon  which  Lord  Castlereagh  consented  at  once 
that  the  clause  should  be  negatived,  and  the  bill  passed  without 
it.  On  the  following  day,  when  Lord  Liverpool,  on  the  bill  being 
brought  back  to  the  Lords,  moved  that  that  House  should  not 
insist  upon  its  amendment,  the  opposition  again  divided  in  favor 


206  HISTORY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [BOOK  I, 

of  a  motion  for  deferring  the  further  consideration  of  the  matter 
till  the  next  day  of  meeting,  but  were  of  course  beaten  as  usual. 
It  was  now  announced  that  a  hill  would  be  brought  in  to  supply 
the  place  of  the  defeated  clause  ;  and  on  the  8th,  leave  to  bring 
in  such  a  bill  was  moved  for  by  Lord  Castlereagh  in  the  Com- 
mons. The  bill  was  made  considerably  more  comprehensive 
than  the  clause  had  been,  for  it  had  been  discovered  that  there 
were  some  English  and  Irish  acts  to  be  guarded  against,  as  well 
as  the  Scotch  one  ;  at  the  same  time  it  was  divested  of  the  ret- 
rospective effect  which  had  been  so  much  objected  to.  An  un- 
successful attempt  was  even  made  by  the  opposition  to  prevent  it 
from  coming  into  operation  till  three  or  four  days  after  it  should 
have  been  enacted,  on  the  ground  that  it  would  otherwise  come 
upon  the  country  without  proper  notice.  Ministers,  however, 
contended  that  people  had  had  notice  enough  from  the  agitation 
the  subject  had  already  undergone  in  parliament ;  and  so,  the 
standing  orders  having  been  again  suspended,  the  bill  went 
through  all  its  stages  and  was  passed  in  the  Commons  on  the 
same  day  on  which  it  was  brought  in.  On  the  day  following  it 
was  hurried  in  the  same  manner  through  the  Lords. 

This  severe  struggle  was  perhaps  not  altogether  inspired  and 
Dissolution;  sustained  by  the  particular  measure  respecting  the 
lOthJuno.  principle  or  details  of  which  it  professed  to  be  carried 
on.  The  moment  was  one  at  which  time  gained  or  lost  was  of 
peculiar  importance.  Ministers,  as  we  have  seen,  had,  by  an  act 
passed  in  the  latter  part  of  the  session,  got  rid  of  the  clause  in 
the  Regency  Act,  which  provided  that  the  parliament  should  im- 
mediately reassemble  in  case  of  the  death  of  the  Queen.  But  it 
still  remained  the  law  that  it  should  so  reassemble  on  either  the 
demise  of  the  Crown,  or  the  death  of  the  Regent.  The  termina- 
tion of  the  old  King's  protracted  life  could  not  now  be  far  off, 
and  was  likely  enough  to  happen  any  day.  That  event  would 
revive  the  present  parliament,  even  notwithstanding  a  dissolution, 
if  the  day  appointed  by  the  writs  of  summons  for  the  assembling 
of  a  new  parliament  had  not  arrived  before  it  took  place.1  In 
these  circumstances  ministers  were  very  impatient  to  bring  the 
session  to  a  close,  and  to  get  the  new  parliament  called  together 
as  expeditiously  as  possible.  The  unexpected  discovery  of  the 
old  Scotch  act,  enabling  the  opposition  to  renew  and  continue 
the  battle  on  the  subject  of  the  Alien  Bill,  and  so  to  have  the 
benefit  for  a  little  longer  of  whatever  the  chapter  of  accidents 
might  turn  up,  occasioned  the  loss  of  about  a  week.  At  last, 
however,  on  the  10th  of  June,  the  day  after  the  supplementary 
Alien  Bill,  as  it  was  called,  was  passed,  the  Regent  came  to  the 

1  The  old  parliament  would  have  as-  met,  but  for  an  act  of  the  preceding  sea- 
Bembled  if  the  new  one  had  not  actually  sion,  the  57  Geo.  III.  c.  157. 


CHAP.  XIII.]     DISSOLUTION  OP  PARLIAMENT.  207 

House  of  Peers,  and  at  once  put  an  end  to  the  session  and  dis- 
solved the  parliament.  This  was  a  very  unusual,  indeed  in 
modern  and  constitutional  times  quite  an  unprecedented  proceed- 
ing. The  last  instance  in  which  the  same  thing  had  been  done 
was  when  Charles  II.,  in  March,  1681,  suddenly  nnd  angrily 
dismissed  bis  fifth  and  last  parliament,  which  he  had  called 
together  at  Oxford,  after  it  had  sat  a  week.  This  precedent 
was  exactly  followed  in  the  present  case ;  now,  as  then,  as  soon 
as  the  speech  from  the  throne  had  been  delivered,  the  Lord  Chan- 
cellor, bythe  royal  command,  declared  the  parliament  dissolved. 
The  course  thus  taken  excited  much  surprise  and  comment ; 
and  it  also  threw  the  Commons  into  considerable  perplexity. 
When  the  members,  after  the  ceremony  which  had  made  them, 
members  no  longer,  returned  to  their  own  House,  and  Mr.  Man- 
ners Sutton,  lately  their  speaker,  was  proceeding  to  ivad  the 
speech  at  the  table,  as  is  usual  after  a  prorogation,  Mr.  Tierney 
objected  to  his  doin<r  so,  as  implying  some  approbation  of  the 
mode  of  dissolution  that  had  been  adopted,  which  lie  regarded  as 
an  insult  to  parliament.  To  this  it  was  rejoined  by  Lord  Cas- 
tlereagh,  in  a  different  tone,  that  at  any  rate  they  had  better  let 
the  subject  alone  for  the  present,  in  case  they  should  be  charged 
with  attempting  to  deliberate  as  a  House  of  Commons,  when 
they  were  only  a  meeting  of  private  gentlemen,  and  might  incur 
a  prcemunire.  In  point  of  fact,  the  speech  was  not  read.  The 
proclamation  for  calling  the  new  parliament  was  issued  the  same 
afternoon  ;  and  the  writs  were  made  returnable  on  the  4th  of 
August.  Nothing  could  now  bring  the  old  parliament  to  life 
again  except  the  death  of  the  King  or  the  Regent  within  the 
interval  of  fifty-five  days. 


208  HISTORY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [Boo*  I. 


CHAPTER   XIV. 

THE  general  election  kept  the  country  in  an  uproar  from  the 
General  middle  of  June  till  the  middle  of  July.  The  interest 
election.  tjiat  was  excited  by  many  of  the  contests  was  almost 
unprecedented  ;  and  in  several  instances  the  mob  proceeded  far 
beyond  its  ordinary  license  and  violence.  The  contest  at  West- 
minster, in  particular,  drew  and  fixed  universal  attention,  both 
by  the  extreme  character  of  the  outrages  which  took  place,  and 
by  the  doubt  that  continued  to  hang  over  the  issue  almost  to  the 
last.  Of  the  two  late  members  only  Sir  Francis  Burdett  stood 
again  ;  Lord  Coclirane,  about  to  set  out  for  South  America  to 
take  the  command  of  the  naval  forces  of  the  state  of  Chili,  de- 
clined to  come  forward.  In  these  circumstances  different  sec- 
tions of  the  electors  looked  about  in  different  quarters.  One 
portion  of  the  Radicals,  with  an  amusing  ignorance  of  their  man, 
applied  to  Mr.  Wetherell  (afterwards  Sir  Charles)  to  represent 
them  ;  Mr.  Wetherell  had  acquired  great  glory  by  his  successful 
defence  of  Dr.  Watson  in  the  preceding  year,  on  his  trial  of 
seven  days  for  high  treason ;  and  these  worthy  Westminster 
electors  imagined  the  learned  gentleman  to  be  as  good  a  patriot 
as  themselves.  Mr.  Wetherell,  who  had  sat  in  the  late  parlia- 
ment for  Shaftcshury,  got  off  on  the  plea  of  his  professional  en- 
gagements obliging  him  to  give  up  the  House  of  Commons ;  but 
he  could  not  resist  transfixing  the  deputation  that  waited  upon 
him,  by  expressing  his  hope  that  they  would  find  some  other 
independent  candidate,  with  whom  they  might  unite  their  efforts 
to  rescue  the  city  of  Westminster  from  the  disgrace  it  had  so 
long  endured.  The  disgrace  consisted  simply  in  its  having  bean 
represented  by  the  two  most  thorough-going  and  far-going  re- 
formers in  parliament.  It  was  then  determined  by  either  the 
same  wise  men,  or  some  other  small  section  of  Sir  Francis  Bur- 
dett's  supporters,  to  put  forward,  in  conjunction  with  him,  his 
personal  friend  the  Hon.  Douglas  Kinnaird,  like  himself  the  ad- 
voca  e  of  universal  suffrage,  annual  parliaments,  and  the  ballot. 
At  the  name  time  the  regular  Whig  party  addressed  an  invitation 
to  Sir  Samuel  Romilly,  which  he  accepted.  Soon  after,  Captain 
Sir  Murray  Maxwell  addressed  the  electors,  offering  to  serve 


CHAP.  XIV.]      ELECTION  FOR   WESTMINSTER.  209 

them  on  what  he  described  as  principles  of  attachment  to  his 
King,  and  veneration  for  the  constitution — in  other  words,  as  a 
Tory  and  partisan  of  the  existing  government.  Sir  Murray  was 
a  very  gallant  and  distinguished  naval  officer,  and  had  lately  dis- 
played the  highest  professional  qualities  on  occasion  of  his  ship, 
the  Alce-te,  being  shipwrecked  on  one  of  the  Loo-Choo  Islands, 
in  bringing  back  Lord  Arnherst  from  his  embassy  to  China ;  but 
the  thought  of  his  standing  for  Westminster  seems  to  have  been 
suggested  to  his  friends  or  to  himself,  principally  by  the  consid- 
eration that  a  candidate  from  the  quarter-deck  might  probably 
have  a  good  chance  in  a  place  lately  represented  by  Lord  Coch- 
rsrie.  As  soon  as  he  announced  himself,  however,  the  Tories 
rallied  round  him.  The  election  commenced  on  the  18th  of 
June ;  and  Co  vent  Garden  was  a  scene  of  almost  incessant  con- 
fusion and  riot  from  that  morning  till  the  evening  of  the  4th  of 
July.  In  addition  to  the  four  candidates  we  have  mentioned, 
Major  Cartwright  and  Mr.  Henry  Hunt,  the  then  friend  of  Cob- 
bett,  and  commonly  known  as  Orator  Hunt,  were  proposed ;  the 
show  of  hands  was  declared  to  be  in  favor  of  him  and  Romilly ; 
but,  nevertheless,  he  and  the  Major  polled  very  few  votes :  the 
latter,  who  withdrew  after  the  third  day,  only  23  ;  Hunt,  who 
obstinately  persevered  through  the  fifteen  days,  only  84,  of  which 
no  more  than  11  were  the  produce  of  the  last  eight  d;iys.  Nor 
did  Mr.  Kinnaird  continue  the  struggle  longer  than  Major  Cart- 
wright,  having  in  the  three  days  polled  only  65  votes.  Romilly, 
on  the  other  hand,  took  the  lead  from  the  first,  and  remained  safe 
at  the  head  of  the  poll.  The  only  contest  was  between  Burdett 
and  Maxwell.  The  latter  was  assailed  by  the  populace,  both 
with  execrations  and  missiles  of  a  more  substantial  kind,  from, 
almost  the  first  moment  of  his  appearance  on  the  hustings.  On 
the  first  day  he  was  struck  with  a  stone  on  the  right  eye.  For 
the  first  four  days,  nevertheless,  he  kept  ahead  of  his  antagonist : 
at  the  close  of  the  fourth  day's  polling  the  numbers  stood  —  for 
Maxwell,  1726  ;  for  Burdett,  only  1263.  This  position  of  the 
two  candidates  infuriated  the  mob  ;  and  on  the  evening  of  the 
fifth  day,  as  he  was  returning  from  the  hustings,  Sir  Murray  was 
so  severely  handled  as  to  place  his  life  for  some  time  in  danger. 
He  was  not  able  again  to  appear  in  public.  Both  on  the  fourth 
and  fifth  days,  too,  great  exertions  were  made  by  Burdett's 
voting  friends ;  by  that  fifth  evening  they  had  the  satisfaction  of 
seeing  the  gallant  captain  second  in  the  race,  the  entire  poll 
being  announced  to  be  — for  Maxwell,  2169  ;  for  Burdett,  2171  ; 
and,  similar  efforts  being  continued  on  the  following  day,  this 
difference  of  two  was  increased  to  very  nearly  two  hundred.  Sir 
Murray  never  recovered  his  ground  ;  and  the  fin.-il  numbers  were 
—  Romily,  5339  ;  Burdett,  5238  j  Maxwell,  4808.  On  one  of 
VOL.  H.  14 


210  HISTORY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [Boon  I. 

the  days  of  the  election,  the  Riot  Act  had  to  be  read,  and  the 
military  called  out.  The  election  for  the  city  of  London,  though 
conducted  with  much  less  violence,  was  almost  equally  exciting. 
Of  the  four  late  members,  Sir  James  Shaw  declined  to  come  for- 
ward again  for  private  reasons ;  the  candidates  were  the  other 
three,  Curtis,  Atkins,  and  Wooci,  together  with  three  new  men, 
Wnithman,  Thorpe,  and  Wilson.  The  second  day  placed  Wood 
and  these  three  at  the  head  of  the  poll,  and  at  the  close  of  the 
election  they  were  found  in  the  same  position,  although  down  to 
the  very  last  day  a  close  and  doubtful  struggle  was  maintained 
between  Thorpe  and  Curtis.  On  the  morning  of  that  sixth  day, 
Tuesday,  the  23d  of  June,  Curtis  had  a  majority  of  129;  but 
the  committees  of  his  three  friends  who  headed  the  poll  now 
came  to  the  rescue  of  Thorpe ;  the  consequence  was  that  by 
half-past  eleven  o'clock  he  was  up  with  his  antagonist ;  by 
twelve  he  was  35  ahead  of  him ;  and  in  the  end  the  six  compet- 
itors came  in  in  the  following  order:  Wood,  5700  ;  Wilson,  4829  ; 
Waithman,  4603;  Thorpe,  4335;  Curtis,  4224;  Atkins,  1088. 
The  four  new  members  were  all  Whigs ;  Wood,  who  was  re- 
elected,  had  been  the  only  Whig,  or  anti-ministerialist,  among 
the  old  ones.  Another  contest  that  attracted  still  more  general 
attention  was  that  for  the  representation  of  Westmoreland,  where 
the  late  members,  Viscount  Lowther  and  hi-  uncle  the  Hon. 
Colonel  Lowther,  were  opposed  by  Mr.  Brougham,  in  the  char- 
after  of  champion  of  the  independence  of  the  county,  and  its  de- 
liverer from  family  thraldron.  All  that  an  eloquent  tongue 
could  do  was  done  by  the  new  candidate ;  and  he  was  at  the 
head  of  the  poll  on  the  evening  of  the  first  day ;  but  after  this 
he  fell  more  and  more  behind  every  hour ;  and  on  the  evening 
of  the  fourth  day,  when  he  had  polled  only  889  votes  against 
Colonel  Lowther's  1157,  he  gave  in.  Besides  about  70  members 
who  had  sat  in  the  last  parliament  for  other  places,  there  were 
about  190  new  members  returned  in  alL  Of  these  about  80 
were  brought  in  after  contests,  in  addition  to  about  a  dozen  old 
members  so  returned  for  new  places.  There  were  altogether 
about  115  contested  elections ;  so  that,  the  entire  number  of  con- 
siituencies  in  the  empire  being  then  380,  about  one  seat  in  three 
was  disputed.  Of  those  that  were  undisputed,  however,  about 
one  half  may  have  been  nomination  seats.  Still  the  contests, 
perhaps,  were  not  so  numerous  as  they  would  have  been,  but  for 
the  circumstances  which  made  it  almost  certain  that  the  next  par- 
liament would  be  a  verv  short  one,  seeing  that  the  death  of  the 
King,  whenever  it  should  happen,  would  necessarily  dissolve  it 
in  six  months  thereafter.  That  seats,  which  were  to  be  held  by 
so  unusually  precarious  a  tenure,  should  be  so  eagerly  sought  in 
so  many  instances,  was  a  strong  evidence  of  the  excited  state  of 


CHAP.  XIV.]     STRIKE   OF  MANCHESTER   SPINNERS.         211. 

party  feeling.  The  hopes  of  the  Whigs,  in  fact,  were  now  higher 
than  they  had  ever  been  since  they  had  been  last  in  office,  ten 
years  ago.  Mr.  Ward,  who  had  now  returned  to  England  — 
though,  having  lost  his  election  at  Ilchester,  which  he  had  lately 
represented,  he  was,  as  he  says,  for  the  first  time  since  he  had 
been  a  boy,  out  of  parliament  —  thus  writes  to  Dr.  Coplestone 
in  the  end  of  August :  "  The  next  session  is  likely  to  be  more 
interesting  than  the  last.  Opposition  comes  into  parliament  in 
rather  greater  numbers,  and  in  far  greater  spirits.  It  is  mar- 
shalled, too,  under  an  able  and  experienced  leader  [Tierney]. 
The  government  don't  seem  much  beloved.  It  has  quite  spent 
the  popularity  of  the  war.  There  seems,  too,  to  be  a  great  deal 
of  discontent  in  the  country,  which  may  on  some  occasion  be 
brought  to  bear  upon  party  objects.  I  should  be  able  less  to 
understand  what  was  the  cause  of  this  discontent,  if  I  did  not 
know  that  peace  and  prosperity  have  always  a  tendency  to  pro- 
duce it.  We  have  h;id  peace  for  some  time,  and  we  seem  rising 
fast  to  prosperity,  for  I  observe  the  old  symptoms  of  it  again  — 
credit,  building,  improving,  and  the  increasing  luxury  of  the 
middling  classes." 

The  elections  were  scarcely  well  over  when  considerable  unea- 
siness began  to  be  spread  by  the  accounts  that  came 
from  Manchester  of  the  temper  and  proceedings  of  a  Manchester 
portion  of  the  working  classes  there.  Much  dissatis-  cotton- 
faction  had  prevailed  for  some  time  among  the  cotton- 
spinners  on  the  subject  of  wages ;  and  so  early  as  before  the  end 
of  June  they  had  struck  work  to  the  number  of  about  fifteen 
thousand.  Of  course,  as  days  and  weeks  passed  on,  and  they 
felt  more  and  more  the  pressure  of  diminished  resources,  while 
their  hopes  of  attaining  their  object  by  peaceable  or  passive  re- 
sistance were  also  dying  away,  there  was  the  greater  danger  that 
they  might  be  tempted  to  deviate  into  something  illegal.  It  is 
probable,  also,  that  from  the  first,  although  no  satisfactory  proofs 
of  combination  could  be  obtained,  the  usual  means  of  intimida- 
tion at  least,  if  not  of  actual  violence,  were  employed  to  prevent 
those  who  were  willing  to  work  from  continuing  to  do  so,  and  to 
compel  them  to  join  the  strike.  But  it  appears  not  to  have  been 
till  about  tin;  beginning  of  August  that  the  authorities  consid- 
ered themselves  called  upon  even  to  make  any  preparations  in 
contemplation  of  a  possible  breach  of  the  peace.  By  that  time, 
if  not  before,  the  spinners  had  begun  to  assemble  in  processions, 
which  were  regarded  as  being  intended  to  make  a  formidable 
display  of  their  numerical  strength  ;  and,  the  government  having 
been  applied  to,  some  troops  were  ordered  to  proceed  to  the 
town.  The  magistrates,  also,  on  the  1st  of -that  month,  issued  a 
public  notice,  in  which  they  described  the  spinners  as  being  in 


212  HISTOKY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [BOOK  L 

the  habit  not  only  of  assembling  in  great  numbers  and  parading 
the  streets,  but  of  besetting  particular  factories,  and  forcibly 
preventing  the  well-disposed  from  continuing  to  work  ;  and  inti- 
mated their  determination  to  use  every  exertion  to  bring  to  pun- 
ishment the  persons  concerned  in  these  proceedings.  No  collis- 
ion, however,  took  place  till  the  2d  of  September,  on  which  day 
the  spinners,  having  been  joined  by  a  large  body  of  others  from 
Stockport,  after  a  procession  through  the  streets  as  usual,  re- 
paired to  a  factory  in  Ancoat's  Lane,  and,  it  is  said,  had  actually 
begun  to  force  their  way  into  the  building,  when  some  soldiers 
and  police  that  were  stationed  in  it  fired  and  wounded  three  of 
them,  one  of  whom  soon  after  died.  A  party  of  dragoons  and 
infantry  then  arrived  and  dispersed  the  mob,  which  some  calcu- 
lations made  to  have  amounted  to  not  less  than  30,000.  A  coro- 
ner's jury  that  sat  upon  the  body  of  the  man  who  had  been  killed, 
brought  in  a  verdict  of  justifiable  homicide.  This  affair  appears 
to  have  put  an  end  to  the  disturbances,  and  even  to  have  broken 
up  the  strike.  On  the  1 1  th.  Lord  Sidmouth,  who  had  gone  in 
the  beginning  of  August  to  spend  a  few  weeks  in  the  west  ot' 
England,  but  had  been  suddenly  recalled  to  town  by  the  alarm- 
ing reports  received  at  the  Home  Office,  writes  as  follows  to 
Lord  Ellenborough : l  "  The  combination  at  Manchester  is  now 
nearly  dissolved,  and  tranquillity  is  completely  restored.  The 
verdict  of  the  jury  in  the  case  of  the  person  killed  in  the  attack 
on  Gray's  mill,  the  arre<t  of  Johnson,  Baguley,  and  Drummond, 
who  are  lodged  in  Chester  jail,  the  failure  of  pecuniary  supplies, 
and  the  admirable  arrangements  of  Sir  John  Byng,  in  conjunc- 
tion with  the  civil  authorities  — one  of  the  chief  objects  of  which 
was  to  afford  protection  to  all  persons  disposed  to  return  to  their 
work  —  have  effected  this  fortunate  change."  This  affair,  in- 
deed, in  its  origin,  and  so  far  as  it  had  actually  proceeded,  was 
merely  a  dispute  about  wages ;  but  as  such  it  proved  at  any  rate, 
that  all  was  not  gold  that  glittered  in  the  present  show  of  na- 
tional prosperity,  and  that  the  busy  commercial  speculation  that 
had  sprung  up  had  not  prevented  the  existence  of  much  distress 
among  large  classes  of  the  people.  Wages,  in  fact,  were  not 
such  as  to  compensate  for  the  high  prices  of  food. 

Except,  however,  that  meetings  for  radical  reform  continued 
to  be  held  occasionally  in  London  and  elsewhere,  the  tranquillity 
of  the  country  remained  undisturbed  for  the  rest  of  the  year. 
Almost  the  only  other  domestic  event  of  a  public  or  historical 
Death  of  the  character  that  occurred  in  the  course  of  the  year  was 
Queen.  the  death  of  the  Queen,  which  took  place  on  the  17th 
of  November.  Her  majesty  was  in  her  seventy-fifth  year,  and 
had  been  suffering  for  about  three  months  from  dropsy  in  the 
1  Pellew's  Life  of  Lord  Sidmouth,  ill.  p.  226. 


CHAP.  XIV.]     DEATH  OF   DISTINGUISHED   MEN.  213 

chest.  The  act  passed  in  the  last  session  of  parliament,  amend- 
ing the  Regency  Act,  prevented  this  event  from  having  any  im- 
mediate political  consequences.  A  much  more  profound  sensa- 
tion was  produced  by  another  death  which  happened  D^^gof-si, 
about  the  same  time,  that  of  Sir  Samuel  Romilly,  who  Samuel 
destroyed  himself  on  the  2d  of  November,  four  days  B0"""^.*0- 
after  the  loss  of  his  wife,  in  a  paroxysm  of  insanity,  brought  on 
by  that  severe  shock  falling  upon  a  mind  previously  weakened 
and  shattered  by  overburdening  professional  labors  and  anxieties, 
lie  was  sixty-one  years  of  age ;  and  he  had  attained  the  highest 
position,  both  in  the  courts  of  law  and  in  parliament,  which  abil- 
ity and  character,  without  office,  could  confer.  Nor  was  any 
man  more  universally  beloved.  His  late  triumphant  return  for 
Westminster,  where  he  had  been  brought  in  at  the  head  of  the 
poll,  without  having  either  spent  a  shilling  or  asked  a  vote,  or 
even  once  made  his  appearance  on  the  hu-tings,  was  a  sufficient 
testimony  to  his  general  popularity,  and  also,  it  may  be  added,  to 
the  purity  of  conduct,  and  elevation  above  all  popularity-hunting 
arts,  by  which,  or  notwithstanding  which,  he  had  acquired  it. 
But  the  charm  of  his  beautiful  nature  won  its  way  even  where 
wide  difference  of  political  "principle  and  sentiment  mi^ht  have 
been  expected  to  create  some  prejudice  against  him.  His  death 
was  acutely  felt,  we  are  told,1  by  Lord  Eldon,  before  whom  he 
had  been  for  many  years  in  daily  and  preeminent  practice. 
"  The  Chancellor,"  it  is  related,  '"  came  into  court  next  morning 
obviously  much  affected.  As  he  took  his  seat  lie  was  struck  by 
the  sight  cf  the  vacant  place  within  the  bar  which  Romilly  was 
accustomed  to  occupy.  His  eyes  were  filled  with  tears.  '  I  can- 
not stay  here,'  he  exclaimed ;  and,  rising  in  great  agitation,  broke 
up  his  court."  Within  little  more  than  a  month  after  Romilly, 
on  the  13th  of  December,  died  another  great  lawyer,  of  equally 
opposite  politics  and  temper,  Lord  Ellenborough.  This  remark- 
able man,  whose  talents,  so  long  as  he  continued  in  his  vigor, 
were  of  the  mo 4  commanding  character,  seemed  never  to  have 
recovered  from  his  discomfiture  by  Hone  in  the  preceding  year. 
We  have  already  quoted  the  terms  in  which  he  wrote  to  Lord 
Sidmoiith  on  the  day  after  the  last  of  the  three  trials  and  acquit- 
tals. The  purpose  of  resignation  which  he  announced  in  that 
letter  he  had  carried  into  effect  about  three  months  before  his 
death.  He  was,  when  he  died,  in  his  sixty-ninth  year,  and  he 
had  presided  in  the  court  of  King's  Bench  since  April,  1802. 
In  August  this  same  year,  had  died,  at  the  age  of  eighty-five, 
Warren  Hastings,  whose  leading  counsel  Lord  Ellenborough 
(then  Mr.  Law)  had  been  throughout  the  five  years  of  his  mem- 
orable trial  before  the  House  of  Lords,  since  the  termination 
1  Twiss's  Life  of  Lord  Eldon,  ii.  p.  324. 


214  HISTORY  OF   THE  PEACE.  [BOOK  L 

of  which  a  quarter  of  a  century  had  now  elapsed.  And,  remark- 
ably enough,  before  the  year  was  out,  Hastings  had  been  followed 
to  the  grave  by  the  most  pertinacious  and  vindictive  of  his  ac- 
cusers and  enemies,  Sir  Philip  Francis.  He  died  at  the  age  of 
seventy-eight,  on  one  of  the  last  days  of  December,  when  there 
wanted  only  about  a  month  to  make  exactly  half  a  century  since 
the  appearance  of  the  first  of  the  famous  ''  Letters  of  Juuius,"  of 
which  he  has  been  supposed  to  be  the  author. 

The  most  important  event  belonging  to  the  general  history  of 
Congress  of  ^urop6  which  marks  this  year  is  the  congress  of  the 
Aix-ia-cha-  allied  sovereigns  held  at  Aix-la-Chapelie  for  the  pur- 
pose of  withdrawing  the  army  of  occupation  from 
France.  Of  the  150,000  troops  lett  in  that  country  in  1815, 
30,000,  of  which  6000  were  English,  had  been  withdrawn  last 
year ;  and,  although  it  had  been  originally  stipulated  that  the 
occupation  m'ght  extend  to  five  years,  it  had  been  for  some  time 
universally  expected  and  understood  that  it  would  be  actually 
put  an  end  to  now  at  the  end  of  three.  So  much  was  this  the 
case,  that  the  holding  of  the  congress  was  looked  upon  as  little 
more  than  going  through  a  necessary  form.  And,  in  point  of 
fact,  littie  or  nothing  of  deiiberatibu  or  discussion  appears  to 
have  taken  place.  The  ministers  of  the  several  powers,  including 
the  Duke  of  Wellington  and  Lord  Castlereagh,  as  representing 
his  Britannic  Majesty,  had  collected  at  Aix-la-Chapelle  by  the 
25th  of  September ;  the  King  of  Prussia  arrived  the  next  day ; 
the  Emperors  of  Austria  and  Russia  on  the  28th.  Two  prelimi- 
nary conferences  were  held  on  the  30th  and  3 1  st ;  and  at  a 
third,  held  on  the  2d  of  October,  the  evacuation  was  unanimously 
agreed  upon.  An  envoy  was  immediately  despatched  to  Paris, 
where  the  news  was  received  on  the  5th.  A  few  more  confer- 
ences were  held,  to  settle  the  time  and  manner  of  the  evacuation, 
and  also  to  determine  how  much  of  the  pecuniary  idemnity  of 
700  millions  of  francs,  imposed  upon  France,  still  remained  due. 
But  by  the  9th,  an  agreement  embracing  all  points  was  drawn 
up  hi  the  form  of  a  treaty,  and  signed  by  the  ministers  of  the 
several  powers ;  and  on  the  17th  the  sovereigns  affixed  their 
own  signatures.  It  was  settled  that  the  army  of  occupation 
should  be  entirely  withdrawn  by  the  30th  November,  or  sooner 
if  possible ;  and  the  sum  remaining  to  be  paid  by  France  was 
definitively  fixed  at  265  millions  of  francs.  Afterwards,  on  the 
representation  of  the  Duke  of  Richelieu,  a  slight  modification 
was  made  by  another  protocol  in  the  arrangements  respecting  the 
dates  at  which  the  successive  instalments  of  the  indemnity  should 
l>e  discharged  by  France.  The  removal  of  whatever  apprehen- 
sions and  objections  might  have  been  entertained  in  any  quarter 
to  the  decision  thus  come  to  by  the  allied  sovereigns,  is  under- 


CIIAP.  XIV.]     CONGRESS   OF  AIX-LA-CHAPELLE.  215 

stood  to  have  been  chiefly  due  to  the  efforts  of  Louis  XVIII. 
and  the  Duke  of  Wellington  ;  and  the  smoothing  away  of  any 
difficulties  that  arose  after  the  congress  met  is  attributed  princi- 
pally to  liis  grace.  "  Sufficient  justice,"  writes  a  recent  French 
historian,1  "  has  not  generally  been  done  to  the  Duke  of  Welling- 
ton for  the  liberal  and  faithful  manner  in  which  he  protected  the 
interests  of  France  throughout  all  the  negotiations  with  foreign 

powers The   Duke  was  highly  favorable   to   France  in 

everything  that  related  to  the  evacuation  of  her  territory.  His 
position  as  generalissimo  of  the  army  of  occupation  gave  a  great 
Aveight  to  his  advice  on  this  question  ;  he  was  consulted  at  every 
step,  and  his  opinion  was  always  given  in  terms  expressive  of  au 
elevation  of  view  and  sentiment  which  did  honor  to  his  character. 
....  With  the  cessation  of  the  armed  occupation,  the  Duke 
was  to  lose  a  great  position  in  France,  that  of  generalissimo  of 
the  allied  powers,  and  one  which  made  him,  in  some  sort,  a  mem- 
ber of  the  government ;  he  was  to  sacrifice  also  an  appointment 
of  immense  pecuniary  value  ;  moreover,  his  grace  knew  the  per- 
sonal opinion  of  Lord  Castlereagh,  and  of  a  large  portion  of  the 
English  aristocracy,  to  be  that  the  continuance  of  the  armed  oc- 
cupation was  necessary.  All  these  interests  did  not  check  him; 
he  was  of  opinion  that  this  measure  of  precaution  ought  to  cease, 
seeing  that  not  only  had  France  duly  discharged  the  stipulated 
payments,  but  that  her  government  appeared  to  present  the  char- 
acter of  order  and  of  duration  ;  this  opinion  was  most  influential 
at  the  Congress  of  Aix-la-Chapelle."  That  town  did  not  exhibit 
so  much  splendor  and  festive  gayety  as  had  been  seen  four  years 
back  at  Vienna ;  but  it  was  still  a  busy,  animated,  and  brilliant 
scene.  "  We  never  saw  so  many  stars  in  our  lifetime,"  somebody 
wrote  from  the  place  in  a  letter  which  has  been  printed  ;  "  they 
appear  as  numerous  at  Aix-la-Chapelle  as  in  the  firmament; 
every  sovereign  is  surrounded  with  his  constellation."  2  Many  en- 
tertainments were  given ;  and  plenty  of  dissipation  and  intrigue 
of  every  kind  —  except,  perhaps,  political — went  on.  Num- 
bers of  students  from  the  different  German  universities,  in  their 
antiquated  and  grotesque  academic  dresses,  divided  attention  with 
the  Cossacks  about  the  household  of  the  Emperor  Alexander. 
Among  the  undiplomatic  celebrities  were  Madame  Catalan!  and 
Sir  Thomas  Lawrence  ;  the  latter  sent  by  the  Prince  Regent  to 
take  the  portraits  of  the  Emperors  of  Austria  and  Russia  and 
the  King  of  Prussia.  Another  arrival  which  excited  some  curi- 
osity was  that  of  Robert  Owen  of  New  Lanark,  then  in  the 
earliest  stage  of  his  unwearied  advocacy  and  agitation  of  the  new 
scheme  of  society —  not  ill  described  in  the  letter  we  have  just 

1  Capefigue,  Histoirc  de  la  Restauration,  i.  p.  478. 

2  Edinburgh  Annual  Register  for  1816,  part  ii.  p.  231. 


216  HISTORY  OF   THE  PEACE.  [Boon  I. 

quoted  as  "  a  plan  to  civilize  the  lower  classes  by  parking,  if  we 
may  so  speak,  indigent  families  in  villages,  where  they  would  be 
subjected  to  a  regimen  combined  of  quakerism  and  Jesuitism." 
Mr.  Owen  was  presented  to  the  Emperor  Alexander,  and  bad  a 
long  conference  on  the  subject  of  his  benevolent  and  impractica- 
ble theories.  But  his  Imperial  Majesty  was  also,  it  is  said,1 
beset  by  various  philanthropists  and  regenerators  of  the  other 
sex,  who  sought,  by  means  of  prophetic  ejaculations  and  an  im- 
posing style  of  attire,  to  acquire  the  same  influence  over  his 
imagination  that  Madame  Krudener  had  exercised  some  years 
before.  The  anti-slavery  party  in  England,  too,2  sent  Mr.  Clark- 
son  to  endeavor  to  bring  over  Alexander  to  their  views.  This 
was  done  on  the  suggestion,  or  at  least  by  the  advice,  of  Wilber- 
force,  ever  watchful  for  any  opportunity  of  promoting  the  great 
object  of  his  life.  "  Castlereagh  will  tell  you,"  he  wrote  to  Mr. 
J.  Stephen  in  August,  "  and  tell  you  truly,  that  the  congress  will 
have  nothing  to  do  with  abolitionism  in  any  form.  But  my  own 
idea  is  that  the  Emperor  of  Russia  may  be  likely  to  come  for- 
ward and  befriend  a  -proposal  to  make  the  slave-trade  piracy, 
after  the  abolition  of  it  by  Spain  and  Portugal."  He  had  de- 
spaired of  bringing  over  the  English  government  to  his  views, 
"  conceiving  Castlereagh  to  be  a  fish  of  the  co'd-blooded  kind." 
"  But,"  he  goes  on,  "  you  have  hit  on  the  bait  for  him,  if  he  be  to 
be  caught  at  all,  by  the  exhibition  of  political  considerations 
affecting  our  own  interests,  rather  than  any  prospects  of  general 
philanthropy  —  not  that  he  would  not  recognize  these.  Now  I 
fear  he  would  dislike  our  having  any  agent  at  Aix-la-Chapelle. 
I  should  be  rejoiced,  indeed,  if  he  would  suffer  some  one  to  go 
as  his  travelling  depositary  of  tropical  intelligence  ;  but  I  have 
no  notion  he  would,  and  it  could  not  be  done  without  his  consent. 
It  would  not  be  at  all  proper  for  you  to  go,  which  Macaulay  sug- 
gested. I  fear  I  could  not  do  it  without  impropriety.  But 
Clarkson  seems  formed  by  Providence  for  the  purpose.  .  .  .  He 
would  be  regarded  as  half  Quaker,  and  may  do  eccentric  things 
with  less  offence  than  you  or  I  could.  I  can  truly  say  I  have  no 
suspicion  of  Castlereagh.  It  would  be  most  unjust  to  harbor  any 
such  notion  after  all  his  pains  and  efforts.  But  in  his  public 
character  he  might  be  unable,  without  a  violation  of  diplomatic 
propriety,  to  do  a  thing  which  might  be  very  usefully  done  by  a 
nemo  who  should  apply  his  lever  to  the  great  Alexander.'5  The 
Emperor,  however,  we  are  told,  would  not  be  moved.  The  con- 
gress would  do  nothing  for  the  abolitionists  ;  and  Mr.  Clarkson 
only  obtained  from  Alexander  an  audience  of  an  hour  and  a  half, 
with  an  assurance  that  he  entirely  entered  into  their  views.  In 
fact  the  sovereigns  had  resolved  that  their  present  meeting, 
1  Capefigue,  i.  p.  480.  2  Life  of  Wilberforee,  v.  p.  2,  &c. 


CHAP.  XIV.]  EVACUATION  OF  FRANCE.  217 

•which  they  themselves  called,  not  a  congress,  but  simply  a  re- 
union, should  be  devoted  to  the  question  of  the  evacuation  of 
France  exclusively ;  and  it  had  been  distinctly  announced  before 
they  met  that  no  other  business  would  be  taken  up.  The  ques- 
tion of  the  slave-trade,  nevertheless,  was  entered  upon  at  some 
of  the  conferences,  and  formed  the  subject  of  some  correspond- 
ence after  the  sovereigns  separated.  They  remained  together 
till  the  middle  of  November;  on  the  15th  of  which  month  was 
signed  their  last  document,  a  declaration,  as  it  was  entitled,  iu 
which  they  referred  to  the  treaty  or  convention  of  the  9th  of 
October,  as  the  accomplishment  of  the  work  of  peace,  and  the 
completion  of  the  political  system  destined  to  insure  its  solidity  ; 
and.  having  described  the  r  union  as  not  tending  to  any  new  po- 
litical combination,  to  any  change  in  the  relations  sanctioned  by 
existing  treaties,  but  having  no  other  object  than  the  maintenance 
of  peace,  went  on  to  profess  its  fundamental  basis  to  be  their  in- 
variab'e  resolution  never  to  depart,  either  among  themselves  or 
in  their  relations  with  other  states,  from  the  strictest  observance 
of  the  principles  of  the  rights  of  nntions ;  and  concluded  by 
avowing  their  solemn  conviction  that  their  dutes  towards  God, 
and  the  peoples  whom  they  governed,  made  it  peremptory  on  them 
to  give  to  the  world,  ;is  far  as  in  their  power,  an  example  of  jus- 
tice, of  concord,  of  moderation ;  happy  in  the  power  of  conse- 
crating, from  henceforth,  all  their  efforts  to  the  protection  of  the 
arts  of  peace,  to  the  increase  of  the  internal  prosperity  of  their 
states,  and  to  the  awakening  of  those  sentiments  of  religion  and 
morality,  whose  empire  had  been  but  too  much  enfeebled  by  the 
misfortunes  of  the  times.  Long  before  this  the  several  divisions 
of  the  army  of  occupation  were  on  their  march,  each  to  its  own 
country.  The  time  fixed  for  the  evacuation  had  been  anticipated 
by  about  a  month,  and  the  troops  had  been  reviewed  for  the  last 
time  by  the  Duke  of  Wellington,  at  Sedan,  before  the  end  of 
October,  in  the  presence  of  the  Emperor  of  Russia  and  the  King 
of  Prussia,  who  then  paid  a  flying  visit  to  Louis  XVIII.  at 
Paris.  The  duke  took  leave  of  the  troops,  which  lie  had  com- 
manded for  three  years,  in  an  order  of  the  day  dated  from  the 
head-quarters  at  Catnbray  on  the  7th  of  November,  in  which  he 
expressed  his  gratitude  for  the  good  conduct  which  had  distin- 
guished them  during  the  time  they  had  been  under  his  orders, 
and  the  regret  with  which  he  had  seen  the  moment  arrive  which 
was  to  put  an  end  to  his  public  connection  and  private  relations 
with  the  officers  ;  and  begged  the  generals  commanding-in-ch'ef 
to  receive  and  make  known  to  the  men  under  their  orders  the 
assuranc",  that  he  should  never  cease  to  take  the  most  lively 
interest  in  everything  that  mijzht  concern  them;  and  that  tiie 
remembrance  of  the  three  years  during  which  he  had  had  the 


218  HISTORY   OF  THE   PEACE.  [Boon  I. 

honor  to  be  at  their  head  would  be  always  dear  to  him.  Our 
illustrious  countryman  was  made  during  the  congress  a  field- 
marshal  in  the  Austrian,  Russian,  and  Prussian  services,  and 
also  a  Grand  Cordon,  or  Knight  of  the  First  Class,  of  the 
French  Order  of  the  Holy  Ghost.  Even  in  matters  of  ceremo- 
nial, the  great  captain  almost  took  rank  with  the  crowned  heads ; 
and  in  real  importance  and  personal  ascendency  he  was  the  first 
figure  there.  After  his  return  to  England,  his  grace  was  ap- 
pointed, in  the  end  of  December,  Master-General  of  the  Ord- 
nance, with  a  seat  in  the  cabinet. 

The  economical  condition  of  the  country  still  continued  at  the 

close  of  the  year  to  present  much  the  same  superficial 
tbcTcountry  appearance  which  it  had  done  for  some  time  preceding  ; 
*f  i8i8°Iose  kut  tne  e^ast'c  spirit  which  had  existed  a  twelvemonth 

ago  had  long  been  palpably  on  the  decay,  and  was  now 
quite  gone.  The  harvest  had  turned  out,  upon  the  whole,  better 
than  had  been  expected.1  Oats,  barley,  beans,  and  peas,  indeed, 
proved  very  unproductive ;  but  the  wheat  crop  was  of  average 
quantity.  Grass,  turnips,  and  potatoes,  which  had  all  been  al- 
most given  up,  made  a  sudden  recovery  in  the  first  week  of  Sep- 
tember, when  some  rain  at  last  fell  after  the  long  drought.  The 
consequence  was,  that,  although  the  prices  of  all  other  kinds  of 
agricultural  produce  used  as  human  food  rose,  and  were  much 
higher  at  the  end  of  this  year  than  they  had  been  at  the  end  of 
the  last,  wheat  had  considerably  fallen  in  price.  Oats,  for  in- 
stance, which  had  been  at  45s.  lid.  the  quarter  in  December, 
1817,  were  now  at  63s.  Qd. ;  but  wheat,  which  had  been  then  at 
85s.  4rf.,  had  now  declined  to  78s.  lOd.  Still  this  might  be  con- 
sidered as  a  scarcity  price.  Nor  had  the  prices  of  the  other 
commodities  of  which  speculation  had  brought  in  the  largest  sup- 
plies yet  much  given  way.  "  It  is  well  known,"  as  Mr.  Tooke 
observes,2  "  that  the  resistance  to  a  change,  whether  from  a  low 
to  a  high,  or  from  a  high  to  a  low,  range  of  prices,  is  at  first  very 
considerable,  and  that  there  is  generally  a  pause  of  greater  or  less 
duration  before  the  turn  becomes  manifest ;  in  the  interval,  while 
sales  are  difficult  or  impracticable,  unless  at  a  difference  in  price, 
which  the  buyer  in  the  one  case,  and  the  seller  in  the  other,  are 
not  yet  prepared  to  submit  to,  the  quotations  are  regulated  by  the 
last  transactions,  but  are  said  to  be,  and  are  in  fact,  nominal.  A 
struggle  of  this  kind  prevailed  more  or  less,  according  as  the  arti- 
cles were  in  greater  or  less  abundance  through  the  autumn,  and 
into  the  winter  of  1818-19,  when  many  articles  which  had  become 
unsalable  from  excess  were  still  quoted  at  nearly  as  high  prices  as 
they  had  attained  at  any  time  in  1808."  But  the  exce-sive  im- 
portation, which  had  not  yet  much  brought  down  prices,  was  al- 
i  Tooke,  History  of  Prices,  ii.  p.  21,  &c.  2  Ibid.  p.  62 


CHAP.  XIV.]     REVIVAL   OF  REFORM  AGITATION.  219 

ready  bringing  down  many  of  the  importers  and  those  connected 
with  them  ;  and  the  year  closed  in  the  midst  of  numerous  and 
extensive  bankruptcies. 

The  Refonn  spirit,  too,  was  spreading  and  rising  again  among 
the  people,  as  they  began  to  feel  the  pressure  of  the  Revival  of 
commercial  stagnation  in  diminished  employment,  and  the  reform 
a  tendency  to  decline  in  wages.  But,  as  has  been  al-  agita< 
ready  stated,  meetings  for  reform  had  continued  to  be  held  from 
the  commencement  of  the  year,  both  in  the  metropolis  and  in  the 
manufacturing  districts.  One  which  was  held  —  in  the  latter 
part  of  the  year,  as  we  gather  —  at  Birch,  near  Middleton,  where 
he  lived,  is  noted  by  Bamfbrd  for  the  following  incident :  *  "It 
was  moved  and  seconded  that  petitions  to  the  Lords  an<!  Com- 
mons should  be  presented  in  the  usual  manner ;  when  William 
Benbow,  who  had  lately  returned  from  prison,  made  his  way 
through  the  crowd,  and,  mounting  the  wagon,  urged  the  people, 
in  a  violent  and  irrational  address,  to  march  to  London,  and 
'  present  their  petitions  at  the  point  of  the  sword  and  pike.' 
He  was  loudly  cheered,  with  expressions  such  as,  '  Ay,  that's 
the  way  '  —  '  Go  on,  Benbow  '  —  '  That 's  the  man  for  us.' 
At  that  same  time  he  was  pondering  on  a  retreat  from  the  coun- 
try ;  that  country  which  he  was  endeavoring  to  distract  by  a 
course  of  violence.  That  very  week,  or  the  week  following,  he 
sailed  from  Liverpool  to  join  Cobbett  in  America.  When  I  af- 
terwards met  some  of  his  applauders,  and  asked  them  what  they 
thought  of  the  man  who  could  urge  them  to  rush  on  destruction, 
and  then  hasten  out  of  the  way,  they  shook  with  indignation." 
This  may  show  that  all  the  violent  counsels  which  were  ad- 
dressed to  the  people  did  not  proceed  from  the  government  spies  ; 
Borne  of  their  leaders  were,  no  doubt,  the  advisers  of  as  extreme 
and  insane  courses  as  any  recommended  by  Castles  or  Oliver. 

Another  meeting  at  Lydgate,  in  Saddleworth,2  in  the  West 
Riding  of  Yorkshire,  which  appears  to  have  taken  place  earlier 
in  the  year,  is  remarkable  for  the  introduction  of  an  innovation, 
of  which  Bamford  was  himself  the  originator.  In  a  speech 
which  he  made,  he  proposed  that  his  female  auditors  should  take 
part  with  the  men  in  the  show  of  hands  when  the  resolution  was 
put  to  the  vote,  vindicating  their  claim  to  be  allowed  to  do  so  on 
grounds  both  of  right  and  expediency.  "  This,"  says  he,  "  was 
a  new  idea ;  and  the  women,  who  attended  numerously  on  that 
bleak  ridge,  were  mightily  pleased  with  it ;  and  the  men  being 
nothing  dissentient,  when  the  resolution  was  put,  the  women  held 
up  their  hands,  amid  much  laughter;  and  ever  from  that  time 
females  voted  with  the  men  at  the  radical  meetings."  He  adds, 
that  the  new  impulse  thus  given  to  tne  radical  movement  wus 
*  Life  of  a  Radical,  ii.  p.  167.  2  Ibid.  i.  p.  165. 


220  HISTORY   OF  THE   PEACE.  [BOOK  I. 

not  only  soon  after  copied  at  meetings  for  charitable  and  religious 
purposes,  but  was  erelong  carried  much  beyond  what  had  been 
at  first  contemplated,  and  brought  about  the  formation  of  female 
political  unions,  with  their  committee-women,  chair-women,  and 
other  officials.  Bamford,  we  suppose  from  all  this,  would  have 
had  the  franchise  extended  to  women.  In  curious  contrast  to  his 
radicalism,  here  is  the  following  passage  which  we  find  in  one  of 
Cobbett's  "  Registers  "  of  almost  this  very  date  ;  it  occurs  in  a  let- 
ter to  Major  Cartwright,  written  from  the  United  States  in  Sep- 
tember, principally  in  abuse  of  the  toasts  and  speeches  at  Sir 
Francis  Burdett's  election  dinner :  "  Another  curious  thing  took 
place  at  this  dinner  —  th"  toast  of  'Jeremy  Bentham,  Esq.,  the 
unanswerable  advocate  of  the  rights  of  the  people.'  I  wonder  who 
the  baronet  and  his  Rump  will  find  out  next !  what  unknown 
creature  they  will  bring  forth  !  There  is  no  danger,  you  see, 
from  Mr.  Bentham ;  no  danger  that  he  will  become  the  rival  or 
foil  of  the  baronet.  It  is  safe  to  toast  and  praise  him.  Little 
care  is  taken  to  preserve  consistency  ;  for  Mr.  Bentham,  if  he  can, 
with  his  quaint  and  unintelligible  language  and  mode  of  stat- 
ing and  of  reasoning,  be  called  the  advocate  of  anything,  is  the 
advocate  of  universal  suffrage,1  which  he  would  extend  even  to 
women,  and  which,  by  such  extension,  he  would,  if  he  were  at- 
tended to,  render  ridiculous"  And  then  Bentlian,  his  specula- 
tions, and  his  admirers,  are  kicked  out  of  the  way  in  the  most 
summary  and  contemptuous  style:  ''There  is  one  thing  which 
makes  Mr.  Bentham  a  favorite  with  this  little  band  of  feeble  and 
ambitious  men  ;  indeed  there  are  two  things :  he  cannot  be  a 
rival ;  and  he  would,  if  he  could,  hurt  Mr.  Hunt  and  me.  He 
shows  his  teeth,  but  lie  has  not  dared  to  bite.  He  would  have 
done  it,  if  he  had  dared.  But,  indeed,  he  ran  no  risk  ;  for 
very  few,  comparatively  speaking,  buy  his  book ;  and  those  who 
do,  never  read  it  half  through.  It  is  a  corvee  to  read  it.  It  is 
not  only  bombast,  but  quaint  bombast,  and  puzzling  and  tedious 

beyond  mortal  endurance The  book  is  wholly  inefficient. 

....  A  very  fit  and  proper  person  this  to  be  toasted  by  the 
baronet  and  his  Rump." 

i  At  this  time  Burdett  had  given  up  universal  suffrage  for  what  he  called  gen- 
tral  suffrage. 


CHAP.  XV.]  STATE   OF  THE   COUNTRY.  221 


CHAPTER    XV. 

THE  series  of  bankruptcies  which  had  commenced  in  the  lat- 
ter part  of  the  year  1818,  continued  throughout  the  state  of  the 
first  months  of  1819.  "The  largest,"  says  the  his-  country, 
torian  of  prices,1  "  in  point  of  amount  of  the  articles  of  which 
there  was  so  great  an  excess  of  the  importation,  was  cotton  ;  and 
it  was  in  this  article  that  the  fall  in  price  was  the  greatest,  and 
the  failures  among  those  concerned  in  it,  consequently,  the  most 
extensive.  The  error  usual  on  such  occasions  had  been  com- 
mitted :  the  stocks  on  the  spot  had  been,  as  we  have  seen, 
greatly  reduced  in  1816,  and  a  rise  of  price  of  this  reduced  stock 
was  perfectly  justified;  but  then,  as  in  more  recent  instances,  the 
advanced  price  was  not  confined  to  the  small  stocks  on  the  spot, 
but  was  paid  for  large  quantities  in  the  countries  of  growth,  to 
be  shipped  hither."  The  result,  he  goes  on  to  state,  was,  that 
"  importers,  speculators,  and  manufacturers  were  successively 
ruined  by  having  embarked  too  largely  upon  the  anticipation  of 
the  maintenance  of  the  former  range  of  high  prices.  There 
were  also  very  extensive  failures  in  New  York,  but  more  espe- 
cially in  Charleston,  and  other  southern  ports  of  the  United 
States,  at  the  close  of  1818,  and  at  the  commencement  of  1819." 
This  state  of  commercial  pressure  and  distress  could  not  but 
make  itself  be  felt  to  some  extent  by  the  manufacturing  popula- 
tion. It  may  not  have  gone  the  length  of  throwing  any  consid- 
erable number  of  them  out  of  employment ;  but  it  could  not  fail  to 
affect  the  lal>or-market,  and  to  reduce  still  further  the  rate  of 
wages,  already  inadequate  to  counterbalance  the  continued  high 
price  of  provisions. 

The  large  importations  and  eager  speculation  which  had  gone 
on  for  the  greater  part  of  the  past  year,  however,  had  had  the 
effect  of  swelling  the  revenue,  and  giving  a  semblance  of  ex- 
traordinary prosperity  to  the  national  finances.  This  circum- 
stance, which  had  the  advantage  of  admitting  of  distinct  and 
palpable  exhibition  in  figures,  enabled  ministers  to  meet  the 
iiew  parliament  with  much  complacency. 

1  Tooke's  History  of  Prices,  ii.  p.  77. 


222  HISTORY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [BOOK  I. 

The  Houses  assembled  on  the  14th  of  January,  but  the  first 
Opening  of  week  was  consumed  in  swearing  the  members  of  the 
parliament.  House  of  Commons,  and  in  the  reelection  of  Mr.  Man- 
ners Sutton  to  the  chair  of  that  House,  in  which  he  was  replaced 
by  acclamation.  The  session  was  opened  by  commission  on  the 
21st,  when  the  Regent's  speech  was  read  by  the  Lord  Chancellor. 
In  noticing  the  death  of  the  Queen,  it  directed  the  attention  of 
the  legislature  to  the  consideration  of  such  measures  as  that 
event  had  rendered  necessary  for  the  care  of  his  majesty's  per- 
son. It  then  mentioned  the  late  negotiations  at  Aix-la-Chapelle, 
and  announced  that  a  treaty  had  been  concluded  with  the  United 
States  for  the  renewal,  for  a  further  term  of  years,  of  the  com- 
mercial convention  subsisting  between  the  two  nations,  and  for 
the  amicable  adjustment  of  several  points  of  mutual  importance  to 
the  interests  of  both  countries.  An  assurance  was  expressed  that, 
when  the  estimates  for  the  current  year  should  be  laid  before  the 
Commons,  they  would  learn  with  satisfaction  the  extent  of  re- 
duction which  the  present  situation  of  Europe,  and  the  circum- 
stances of  the  British  empire,  had  allowed  to  be  made  in  our 
naval  and  military  establishments.  At  the  same  lime  they  were 
informed  that  a  considerable  and  progressive  improvement  would 
be  found  to  have  taken  place  "in  the  most  important  branches  of 
the  revenue.  The  military  operations  of  the  Marquess  of  Hast- 
ings against  the  Pindarrees  in  the  East  Indies,  the  news  of  the 
successful  completion  of  which  had  been  received  since  parlia- 
ment last  rose,  were  dwelt  upon  with  merited  congratulation  and 
eulogy.  Lastly,  his  royal  highness  declared  that  he  had  the 
greatest  pleasure  in  informing  parliament  that  the  trade,  com- 
merce, and  manufactures  of  the  country  were  in  a  most  flourishing 
condition  ;  and  he  observed  that  the  favorable  change  which  had 
so  rapidly  taken  place  in  the  internal  circumstances  of  ihe 
United  Kingdom  afforded  the  strongest  proof  of  the  solidity  of 
its  resources. 

The  address  was  voted  in  both  Houses  without  any  amend- 
CareofMs  ment  being  moved,  and  after  little  debate.  The  first 
majesty's  question  that  tried  the  temper  of  the  new  parliament 
was  that  of  the  new  arrangements  to  be  made  for  the 
care  of  the  person  of  his  majesty,  in  consequence  of  the  death 
of  the  Queen.  On  the  25th  of  January  a  bill  was  introduced  in 
the  Lords  by  Lord  Liverpool,  appointing  the  Duke  of  York  as 
the  successor  to  her  majesty.  Some  objections  were  made  by 
the  opposition  to  the  amount  of  patronage  to  be  vested  in  his 
royal  highness  ;  but  no  resistance  of  moment  was  offered  to  this 
bill  in  either  House.  Another,  by  which  it  was  followed  —  the 
Royal  Household  or  Windsor  Establishment  Bill  —  had  not  so 
smooth  a  passage.  This  measure  was  heralded  by  a  message 


CHAP.  XV.]       THE  ROYAL  HOUSEHOLD  BILL.  223 

from  the  Regent,  brought  down  on  the  4th  of  February,  acquaint- 
ing parliament  that  his  royal  highness  placed  at  its  disposal  the 
58,000/.  per  annum  which  had,  by  the  demise  of  her  majesty, 
become  disposable  by  him  for  the  general  purposes  of  the  civil 
list ;  only  recommending  the  claims  of  certain  members  of  her 
majesty's  late  establishment  to  the  justice  and  liberality  of  the 
House  of  Commons.  On  the  same  day  Lord  Castlereagh,  after 
a  speech  in  explanation  of  the  intentions  of  the  government 
moved  and  obtained  the  appointment  of  a  select  committee  to 
take  into  consideration  the  whole  subject  of  this  58,000^.,  and  of 
another  sum  of  100,000/.,  which  had  been  appropriated  to  the 
maintenance  of  the  establishment  at  Windsor,  and  the  distribu- 
tion of  which,  also,  it  was  now  thought  necessary  or  expedient  to 
modify.  It  was  agreed  that,  after  the  select  committee  had  marie 
its  report,  the  subject  should  be  taken  up  and  further  considered 
by  a  committee  of  the  whole  House.  Meanwhile  it  was  inti- 
mated that  ministers  would  propose  the  assignment  of  25,000/.  of 
the  income  of  the  late  Queen  to  be  bestowed  in  annuities  upon 
her  majesty's  servants;  and  the  reduction  of  the  yearly  expense 
of  the  Windsor  establishment  to  50,000/.  The  entire  immediate 
saving,  therefore,  would  be  83,000/.,  which  would  ultimately  be- 
come 108,000/.,  when  all  the  annuities  should  have  fallen  in. 
But  there  was,  besides,  a  sum  of  10,000/.,  which  the  Queen  had 
enjoyed  as  cnstos  of  his  majesty's  person ;  it  was  intended  that 
the  same  salary  should  be  continued  to  the  Duke  of  York.  This 
was  the  clause  of  the  ministerial  scheme  which  it  was  well  known 
would  prove  of  most  difficult  digestion  with  parliament.  Ac- 
cordingly, on  the  22d,  when  the  Commons  resolved  themselves 
into  a  committee  of  the  whole  House  on  the  report  of  the  select 
committee,  it  was  about  the  duke's  salary  that  the  battle  was 
chiefly  waged.  When  the  new  arrangements  were  first  pro- 
posed, Tierney  had  objected  in  strong  terms  to  the  50,000/. 
allowed  for  the  Windsor  establishment.  He  could  not  conceive, 
he  said,  how  this  sum  was  to  be  expended.  "  Fifty  thousand 
pounds  for  the  establishment  at  Windsor,  for  the  support  of  his 
majesty  in  his  present  unhappy  state!  To  whom,  and  for  what 
particular  use  connected  with  the  due  and  dignified  support  of 
the  King,  was  this  sum  to  be  given  ?  His  majesty,  it  was  too 
well  known,  was  incapable  of  even  ordinary  enjoyments.  He 
could  not,  if  he  were  rightly  informed,  speak  or  be  spoken  to ; 
and  indeed  the  necessary  measures  which  were  taken  for  the 
preservation  of  his  health,  and,  if  possible,  the  cure  of  his  mal- 
ady, rendered  such  a  seclusion  from  conversation  absolutely 
essential.  His  regimen  was,  from  the  same  cause,  so  very  plain, 
that  the  tenth  of  50,000/.  would  be  more  than  sufficient  to  sup- 
ply it,  with  all  the  necessary  forms  of  attendance."  Upon  this 


224  HISTORY  OF  THE   PEACE.  [Boos  I. 

head,  however,  the  right  honorable  gentleman,  who  had  been  a 
member  of  the  select  committee,  had  seen  reason  to  alter  his 
opinion.  He  now  confirmed  Castlereagh's  statement,  that  the 
report  of  the  committee,  which,  in  regard  to  the  Windsor  estab- 
lishment, and  the  allowances  to  her  late  majesty's  servants,  coin- 
cided with  the  recommendations  of  the  government,  had  been 
agreed  to  with  perfect  unanimity.  He  had  thought  the  50,000/» 
too  great ;  but  when  he  had  heard  it  stated  in  the  committee,  by 
competent  witnesses,  that,  even  if  it  were  not  to  be  inhabited  by 
his  majesty,  the  necessary  charge  of  maintaining  Windsor  Castle 
would  amount  to  eighteen  or  twenty  thousand  a  year,  he  could 
not  think  that  the  remaining  30,000/.  was  too  much  for  the 
royal  establishment.  Passing  lightly  over  everything  else,  he 
now  directed  the  main  force  of  his  argument  upon  the  question 
—  the  great  constitutional  question,  as  he  called  it  —  out  of 
what  fund  the  guardian  of  the  King's  person  was  to  be  remuner- 
ated ?  Castlereagh,  in  the  speech  with  which  he  opened  the 
debate,  had  used  strong  language.  He  had  said  that,  if  the 
proposition  which  it  was  understood  was  to  be  brought  forward 
from  the  other  side  of  the  House  should  be  carried,  it  would,  he 
believed  in  his  conscience,  consign  the  names  of  the  members  of 
the  new  parliament  to  infamy  in  the  estimation  of  the  country- 
Undismayed  by  this  menace,  Tierney  moved  his  amendment,  to 
the  effect  that  the  expense  attending  the  care  of  his  majesty's 
person  should  be  defrayed  out  of  the  privy  purse,  or  the  other 
private  funds  of  the  crown.  Let  the  country,  he  said,  look  at 
the  various  sums  which  had  been  voted  to  the  royal  family  ^ince 
1811.  The  Prince  Reirent,  besides  50,000/.  a  year  set  apart  for 
the  payment  of  his  debts,  had  then  a  privy  purse  of  60,OOOZ.  a 
year,  to  which  an  addition  of  10,000/.  a  year  had  since  been  made. 
The  King  had  also  a  privy  purse  of  60.000/.  a  year,  with  an 
additional  revenue  from  the  Duchy  of  Lancaster  of  more  than 
10,000/.  There  was  thus  a  private  property  belonging  to  the 
crown  of  140,000/.  a  year;  and  surely  it  was  not  too  much  to 
say  that  out  of  this  large  sum  should  be  defrayed  the  expense 
of  taking  care  of  the  king's  person.  The  task  of  answering 
Tierney 's  speerh  was  undertaken  by  Mr.  Peel,  at  this  time  Sec- 
retary for  Ireland.  He  relied  principally  upon  the  determina- 
tion expressed  by  the  Duke  of  York  to  accept  of  no  salary 
which  should  come  from  the.  privy  purse,  and  upon  the  sacred- 
ness  and  inviolability  which  had  hitherto  been  held  to  attach  to 
that  fund.  When  he  mentioned  Mr.  Sheridan  and  Mr.  Adam 
(now  become  lord  chief  commissioner  of  the  Scotch  Jury  Court) 
as  two  eminent  Whig  authorities  who  had  been  accustomed  to 
preach  this  doctrine  about  the  privy  purse  in  its  highest  strain, 
the  House,  or  at  least  the  opposition,  testified  by  loud  derisive 


CHAP.  XV.]    WHENCE   SALAEY  FOR   CARE  OF  KING.      225 

cheers  how  it  was  disposed  to  account  for  the  high  monarchic 
principles  on  this  point  entertained  or  professed  by  these  perso- 
nal friends  of  the  Prince  of  Wales.  Mr.  Peel,  however,  dexter- 
ously chose  to  understand  tlie  manifestation  in  a  somewhat  dif- 
ferent sense.  "  If,"  he  exclaimed,  "  what  I  have  heard  from  the 
other  side  be  meant  as  a  cheer  of  derision  at  the  name  of  Mr. 
Sheridan,  I  must  say  that  I  could  not  expect  such  an  expression 
towards  an  individual  who  was  one  of  the  most  able  supporters 
the  party  from  which  it  proceeded  ever  had  the  honor  to  possess, 
while  he  was,  by  universal  confession,  one  of  the  greatest  orna- 
ments of  whom  that  House  and  the  British  empire  ever  had  rea- 
son to  be  proud."  The  rest  of  the  debate  on  the  same  side  was 
principally  sustained  by  other  members  of  the  government,  by 
Mr.  Huskisson,  who  held  the  office  of  chief  commissioner  of 
woods  and  forests,  and  by  Sir  Samuel  Shepherd  and  Sir  Robert 
Gifford,  the  Attorney  and  Solicitor  General ;  the  amendment  was 
supported  by  a  crowd  of  speakers,  among  whom  the  most  con- 
spicuous was  Mr.  Scarlett  (the  late  Lord  Abinger).  Some  of 
the  more  ardent  of  the  opposition  orators  seem  to  have  expected 
that  their  logic  and  rhetoric  would  prove  triumphant  that  night 
over  all  the  influences  of  power ;  but,  when  the  vote  was  at  last 
taken,  the  numbers  were  found  to  be  281  for  ministers  against 
186,  so  that  Tierney's  proposition  was  negatived  by  a  majority 
of  95.  Wilberforce,  who  voted  with  the  opposition,  describes 
this  as  the  best  debate  he  had  witnessed  for  a  long  time.1  "  Cas- 
tlereagh,  Tierney,  Peel,  Bankes,  Solicitor- General,  Scarlett," 
he  says,  "  all  did  well."  And  he  adds :  "  I  had  really  the  plan 
of  a  good  and  very  telling  speech,  from  its  taking  up  some  of 
Peel's  points,  but,  partly  from  my  distress  about  Castlereagh,  I 
came  away  without  speaking."  He  was  afraid  that  he  had 
pained  Castlereagh  by  some  expressions  in  a  speech  a  few  days 
before.  Another  animated  debate,  distinguished  by  the  mingled 
eloquence  of  Denman,  Canning,  and  Brougham,  took  place  on 
the  25th,  when  the  resolution  for  giving  the  Duke  of  York  the 
10,000/.  a  year,  was  reported  from  the  committee,  and  was  car- 
ried by  the  still  larger  majority  of  247  to  137.  The  discussion 
in  the  Lords  was  taken  in  committee,  when  Lord  Grey  in  a  long 
speech  proposed  the  omission  of  the  clause  in  the  bill  relating  to 
the  duke's  salary ;  he  was  supported  by  Lord  Lansdowne  and 
other  peers  ;  but  the  amendment  was  not  pressed  to  a  division. 

The  most  important  legislative  act  of  the  session  was  the  ar- 
rangement made  for  the  resumption  of  cash  payments  Resumption 
by  the  bank.  This  question,  in  its  various  branches,  of  cash  pay- 
gave  rise  to  about  fifty  debates  and  conversations  in 
the  two  Houses,  the  reports  of  which  cover  between  four  and 
1  Diary,  in  Life,  v.  p.  13. 

VOL.  II.  15 


226  HISTORY   OF  THE  PEACE.  [BOOK  I. 

five  hundred  long  columns  in  Hansard  ;  we  can  only  rapidly  in- 
dicate the  course  and  the  results  of  the  discussion.  Very  soon 
after  parliament  met,  secret  committees  were,  on  the  motion  of 
ministers,  appointed  in  both  Houses,  to  inquire  into  the  state  of 
the  bank.  Lists,  of  course,  were,  as  usual,  supplied  to  their  ad- 
herents by  the  government,  and  the  ballot,  accordingly,  returned 
a  large  preponderance  of  ministerial  members  for  each  commit- 
tee ;  it  appears,  indeed,  that,  in  the  Commons,  the  opposition 
declined  taking  any  part  in  the  process  of  nomination ;  never- 
theless, a  few  days  afterwards,  Mr.  Calcraft  moved  that  the 
name  of  Mr.  Brougham  should  be  added  to  the  committee,  and 
when  a  division  took  place,  after  a  short  debate,  the  motion  was 
supported  by  the  large  minority  of  133  votes  against  175  —  a 
result  which,  we  are  told,  was  received  by  the  opposition  with  a 
loud  cheer.  It  was  asserted  in  the  course  of  the  debate  *  that 
of  the  twenty-one  members  of  the  committee,  as  appointed  by 
the  ballot,  fourteen  were  ministerialists.  In  the  beginning  of 
April  both  committees  presented  short  reports,  recommending 
that,  in  order  to  facilitate  the  final  and  complete  restoration  of 
cash  payments,  a  bill  should  be  forthwith  passed,  prohibiting  the 
continuance  of  the  payment  in  gold  by  the  bank  of  its  notes 
issued  previous  to  the  first  of  January,  1817,  according  to  its 
public  notices  of  that  and  the  preceding  year.  It  appears  that 
between  six  and  seven  millions  in  gold  had  already  been  paid 
by  the  bank  in  the  fulfilment  of  these  voluntary  engagements. 
"  The  issue  of  that  treasure,"  Mr.  Peel  observed  in  moving  for 
leave  to  bring  in  the  bill,  "  had  not  been  attended  with  any  good 
to  the  nation  ;  and  he  thought,  indeed,  it  might  have  been  fore- 
seen, that,  unless  this  issue  had  been  accompanied  by  a  simul- 
taneous reduction  of  the  number  of  bank-notes,  the  gold  would 
find  its  way  to  those  places  where  there  was  a  greater  demand 
for  it.  There  was  little  doubt  at  present  as  to  the  place  of  its 
destination  ;  for,  by  a  report  of  the  minister  of  finance  in  France, 
it  appeared  that,  within  the  first  six  months  of  the  last  year,  125,- 
000,000  francs  had  been  coined  at  the  French  mint,  three  fourths 
of  which,  it  was  understood,  had  been  derived  from  the  gold 
coin  of  this  realm.  The  opposition  expressed  some  dissatisfac- 
tion ;  but  the  proposed  bill  was  immediately  brought  in,  and 
passed  with  all  possible  expedition  through  both  Houses.  It 
prohibited  the  continuance  of  the  cash  payments  under  the  no- 
tices till  the  end  of  the  current  session.  Much  more  elaborate 
reports,  embracing  the  whole  extent  of  the  subject,  were  pre- 
sented by  the  two  committees  about  a  month  later.  These  ex- 
positions represented  the  condition  of  the  bank  as  eminently 
flourishing.  Its  liabilities,  it  was  stated,  amounted,  on  the  30th 
i  Hansard's  Debates,  xxxix.  p.  358. 


CHAP.  XV.]       DEBATES   ON  THE   CURRENCY.  227 

of  January,  1819,  to  33,894,5807.,  and  its  assets  in  government 
securities  and  other  credits  to  39,09 6,900/.,  exclusive  of  the  per- 
manent debt  of  14,686,800^.  due  from  the  government,  and 
repayable  on  the  expiration  of  the  charter.  The  entire  surplus 
in  favor  of  the  bank,  therefore,  was  1 9,899, 120/. ;  and  what 
mi<rht  be  called  its  immediate  available  surplus,  5,202,320£  The 
bullion  in  its  coffers  also,  which  had  been  very  much  reduced  at 
the  close  of  the  war,  had  gone  on  increasing  from  July,  1815,  to 
October,  1817,  at  which  date  it  was  much  greater  than  it  had 
ever  before  been  since  the  establishment  of  the  bank,  although 
it  had  again  been  brought  down  by  the  payments  that  had  since 
taken  place.  The  committees,  under  the  direction  of  the  gov- 
ernment, which  was  so  influentially  represented  in  each,  agreed 
in  recommending  a  plan  for  the  resumption  of  cash  pay- 
ments, which  was  first  embodied  in  a  series  of  resolutions,  and 
in  that  form  submitted  to  the  two  Houses.  It  was  founded  upon, 
the  principle  first  announced  by  Mr.  Ricardo  in  1816,  in  his 
"  Proposals  for  an  Economical  and  Secure  Currency,"  that  the 
bank  should  be  bound  to  exchange  its  notes,  not  for  coin,  but  for 
gold  ingots,  the  fineness  of  which  should  be  attested  by  a  stamp, 
and  only  in  quantities  above  a  certain  weight,  at  a  rate  to  be 
diminished  from  time  to  time  until  it  should  have  descended  to 
the  Mint  price  of  31.  17s.  10-Jrf.  per  ounce.  But,  although  this 
principle  was  adopted  as  the  basis  of  the  plan,  the  complete  ex- 
changeability of  bank-notes  for  cash  was  provided  for  as  its  ulti- 
mate result.  The  resolutions  were  first  moved  in  the  Lords  on 
the  21st  of  May,  by  Lord  Harrowby,  the  president  of  the  coun- 
cil, who  had  officiated  as  chairman  of  their  lordships'  committee. 
A  series  of  counter -resolutions  moved  by  Lord  Lauderdale, 
although  they  met  with  no  support,  even  from  his  own  side  of 
the  House,  gave  occasion  to  a  debate,  which  was  principally  sus- 
tained by  his  lordship,  and  Lords  Liverpool  and  Grenville  ;  the 
government  plan  received  the  approbation,  not  only  of  Grenville, 
but  also  of  Lords  King  and  Lansdowne ;  Lauderdale's  resolu- 
tions were  negatived  without  a  division,  and  those  moved  by 
Lord  Harrowby  were  agreed  to.  The  subject  was  much  more 
fully  discussed  in  the  Commons,  where  the  ministerial  resolutions 
were  proposed  on  the  24th,  by  Mr.  Peel,  in  an  elaborate  and 
remarkable  speech.  Mr.  Peel  had  been  the  chairman  of  the 
secret  committee  ;  the  report  of  the  committee  was  probably  of 
his  drawing  up,  and  the  government  plan  was  understood  to  have 
been  arranged  and  put  together  by  him ;  but  not  only  was  he 
not  the  originator  of  its  leading  principle  ;  it  would  appear  from 
his  own  statement  that  neither  he  himself  nor  the  government 
had  been  prepared  for  the  adoption  of  such  a  plan  when  the  com- 
mittee was  appointed  and  the  subject  was  first  brought  forward. 


228  HISTORY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [BOOK  I. 

He  began  his  speech  by  frankly  announcing  that,  in  consequence 
of  the  evidence  which  had  been  received  by  the  committee,  and 
the  divisions  which  had  arisen  upon  it,  his  opinions  had  under- 
gone a  very  material  change.  "  He  was  ready  to  avow,  without 
shame  or  remorse,  that  he  went  into  the  committee  with  a  very 
different  opinion  from  that  which  he  at  present  entertained  ;  for 
his  views  of  the  subject  were  most  materially  different  when  he 
voted  against  the  resolutions  brought  forward  in  1811  by  Mr. 
Horner,  as  the  chairman  of  the  bullion  committee.  Having  gone 
into  the  inquiry,  determined  to  dismiss  all  former  impressions 
that  he  might  have  received,  and  to  obliterate  from  his  memory 
the  vote  which  he  had  given  some  years  since  when  the  same 
question  was  discussed,  he  had  resolved  to  apply  to  it  his  undi- 
vided and  unprejudiced  attention,  and  adopt  every  inference  that 
authentic  information  or  mature  reflection  should  offer  to  his 
mind  ;  and  he  had  no  hesitation  in  stating  that,  although  he 
should  probably  even  now  vote,  if  it  were  again  brought  before 
the  House,  in  opposition  to  the  practical  'measure  then  recom- 
mended [the  resumption  of  cash  payments  by  the  bank  after  two 
years],  he  now,  with  very  little  modification,  concurred  in  the 
principles  laid  down  in  the  first  fourteen  resolutions  submitted 
to  the  House  by  that  very  able  and  much-lamented  individual. 
He  conceived  them  to  represent  the  true  nature  and  laws  of  our 
monetary  system."  In  the  conclusion  of  his  speech  he  adverted 
to  another  personal  matter.  Among  other  difficulties,  he  ob- 
served, which  presented  themselves  to  him  in  the  discussion  of 
this  question,  was  one  which  gave  him  great  pain ;  "  and  that 
was  the  necessity  he  felt  of  opposing  himself  to  an  authority 
[that  of  his  father,  Sir  Robert  Peel],  to  which  he  always  had 
bowed,  and  he  hoped  always  should  bow,  with  deference ;  but 
here  he  had  a  great  public  duty  imposed  upon  him,  and  from 
that  duty  he  would  not  shrink,  whatever  might  be  his  private 
feelings."  Thus,  in  the  first  of  the  three  great  measures  with 
which  his  name  is  associated,  as  well  as  in  the  other  two,  Catho- 
lic emancipation  and  the  repeal  of  the  corn-laws,  it  was  the  fate 
of  this  distinguished  statesman  to  surprise  the  public  by  sud- 
denly appearing  as  the  chief  figure  in  what  we  may  call  the  tri- 
umph of  the  principles  which  up  to  that  moment  he  had  spent 
his  life  in  opposing.  Various  modifications  of  the  government 
plan  in  some  particulars  were  proposed  by  Mr.  Edward  Ellis, 
Mr.  Cripps,  and  other  members,  and  the  debate  was  kept  up  for 
two  evenings ;  but  the  original  resolutions  were  in  the  end 
agreed  to  without  a  division.  Although  opposed  by  Tierney, 
they  were  supported  not  only  by  Ricardo,  who  had  been  returned 
to  this  parliament  for  the  Irish  borough  of  Portarlington,  and 
who,  although  not  appointed  to  sit  on  the  secret  committee,  had 


CHAP.  XV.]    RESOLUTIONS.  — FINANCIAL  MEASURES.      229 

been  examined  before  it  at  great  length,  but  by  Sir  Henry  Par- 
nell,  Mr.  Abercromby  (the  present  Lord  Dunfermline),  and 
other  members  of  the  opposition.  The  resolutions,  as  reported 
by  the  committee  of  the  whole  House,  were  to  the  following 
effect :  That  it  was  expedient  that  the  restriction  on  payments  in 
cash  by  the  bank  should  be  continued  beyond  the  time  fixed  by 
law,  the  5th  of  July,  1819;  that  a  definite  period  should  be 
fixed  for  the  termination  of  the  restriction,  and  that  in  the  mean 
time  certain  preparatory  measures  should  be  taken ;  that  provi- 
sion should  be  made  for  the  gradual  repayment  to  the  bank  of 
1 0,000,000/.  of  its  advances  for  the  public  service ;  that  from 
the  1st  of  February,  1820,  the  bank  should  be  obliged  to  give  in. 
exchange  for  its  notes  gold,  assayed  and  stamped,  in  quantities 
of  not  less  than  sixty  ounces,  at  the  rate  of  8 Is.  per  ounce  ;  that 
from  the  1st  of  October,  1820,  it  should  be  obliged  to  pay  gold 
for  its  notes  in  the  same  manner,  at  the  rate  of  79s.  6e?.  per 
ounce;  that  after  the  1st  of  May,  1821,  the  rate  should  be  77s. 
lOJrf.  per  ounce;  that  from  the  1st  of  May,  1823,  the  bank 
should  pay  its  notes  on  demand  in  the  legal  coin  of  the  realm ; 
and  that  the  laws  prohibiting  the  melting  and  exportation  of  the 
coin  should  be  repealed.  Bills  embodying  these  resolutions  were 
afterwards  brought  in  by  Mr.  Peel  and  the  Chancellor  of  the  Ex- 
chequer, and  encountered  scarcely  any  opposition  in  their  passage 
through  either  House.  The  only  alteration  of  any  importance 
made  in  the  original  arrangement  was  the  substitution  of  the  1st 
of  May,  1822,  for  the  1st  of  May,  1821,  as  the  date  at  which  the 
bank  should  be  obliged  to  begin  paying  gold  for  its  notes  at  the 
Mint  price.  This  amendment  was  introduced  in  the  Lords,  on 
the  motion  of  Lord  Harrowby,  and  was  agreed  to  by  the  Com- 
mons. The  bank,  however,  we  may  here  mention,  did  not  avail 
itself  either  of  this  postponement,  or  even  of  the  liberty  to 
refuse  payment  in  gold  of  any  demands  under  2331.  12s.  6d. — 
the  value  of  sixty  ounces  —  but  on  the  1st  of  May,  1821,  com- 
menced giving  cash  in  exchange  for  its  notes  of  whatever 
amount. 

A  few  days  after  the  secret  committees  on  the  bank  had  been 
nominated,  Lord  Castlereagh,  in  the  Commons,  pro-  Financial 
posed  the  appointment  of  a  select  committee  for  in-  measures, 
quiring  into  the  national  income  and  expenditure,  to  consist  of 
tho  same  twenty-one  members  who  had  formed  the  finance  com- 
mittee of  the  last  parliament,  except  that  two  new  names  were 
substituted  for  those  of  Sir  Thomas  Acland  and  Mr.  J.  P.  Grant, 
who  were  not  now  in  the  House.  In  the  speech  with  which  he 
prefaced  his  motion,  Castlereagh  went  into  almost  as  mucli  detail 
as  if  he  hud  been  opening  the  budget,  and  a  debate  was  brought 
on ;  but  no  objection  was  made  to  the  appointment  of  the  com- 


230  HISTORY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [Boon.  I. 

mittee.  The  committee  presented  an  elaborate  report  in  the  be- 
ginning of  April ;  and  on  the  3d  of  June,  in  a  committee  of  the 
whole  House,  the  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer  laid  on  the  table 
a  series  of  resolutions  founded  on  this  report,  and  presenting  an 
outline  of  the  proposed  financial  arrangements  for  the  year. 
They  began  by  affirming  that  the  reduction  of  taxation  since 
1815  had  been  upwards  of  18,000,000/.  per  annum,  and  that, 
when  the  revenues  of  Great  Britain  and  Ireland  had  been  con- 
solidated in  1816,  the  mere  interest  upon  the  debt  of  Ireland,  in- 
cluding the  sinking  fund  applicable  to  its  reduction,  had  exceeded 
the  entire  net  revenue  of  that  country  by  nearly  1,900,000/., 
"  without  affording  any  provision  for  the  civil  list,  and  other  per- 
manent charges,  or  for  the  proportion  of  supplies  to  be  defrayed 
by  that  part  of  the  United  Kingdom;"  it  was.  then  stated  that 
the  supplies  required  to  be  voted  for  the  present  year  would  be 
20,500,000^ ;  that  the  portion  of  such  supplies  which  might  be 
provided  by  the  continuance  of  the  existing  revenue  could  not 
be  estimated  at  more  than  7,000,000/.,  leaving  the  sum  of 
13,500,000/.  to  be  raised  by  loan  or  other  extraordinary  re- 
source ;  that  the  sinking  fund  might  be  estimated  at  15,500,000/., 
exceeding  the  sum  necessary  to  be  raised  for  the  service  of  the 
year  by  about  2,000,000/.  only ;  and  the  concluding  resolution 
was  as  follows  :  "  That,  to  provide  for  the  exigencies  of  the  pub- 
lic service,  to  make  such  progressive  reduction  of  the  national 
debt  as  may  adequately  support  public  credit,  and  to  afford  to 
the  country  a  prospect  of  future  relief  from  a  part  of  its  present 
burdens,  it  is  absolutely  necessary  that  there  should  be  a  clear 
surplus  of  the  income  of  the  country,  beyond  the  expenditure, 
of  not  less  than  5,000,000/. ;  and  that,  with  a  view  to  the  attain- 
ment of  this  important  object,  it  is  expedient  now  to  increase  the 
income  of  the  country  by  the  imposition  of  taxes  to  the  amount 
of  3,000,000/.  per  annum."  The  debate  on  these  resolutions 
was  taken  on  the  7th,  when  the  additional  taxation  was  strongly 
opposed,  and  the  previous  question  was  moved  as  an  amendment 
on  that  part  of  the  ministerial  scheme ;  but  on  a  division  the  res- 
olutions were  carried  by  a  majority  of  329  against  132.  The 
new  taxes,  it  was  now  announced,  would  be  raised  on  malt, 
tobacco,  coffee,  and  cocoa,  tea,  British  spirits,  pepper,  and  foreign 
wool.  The  budget  was  opened  by  Mr.  Vansittart  on  the  9th, 
when  several  more  divisions  took  place,  but  all  the  ministerial 
propositions  were  carried  by  large  majorities.  The  supplies 
voted  in  the  course  of  the  session  were  :  for  the  army,  8,900,000/. ; 
for  the  navy,  6,43  6,000/. ;  for  the  ordnance,  1,191,OOOJ. ;  miscel- 
laneous, 1,950,000/.  ;  interest  and  sinking  fund  on  exchequer 
bills,  2,000,000/.  ;  repayment  of  advances  from  the  bank, 
5,000,000^. ;  reduction  of  other  unfunded  debt,  5,597,000/. ;  niak- 


CHAP.  XV.]     OTHER  SUBJECTS   OF  LEGISLATION.  231 

ing  in  all  31,074.0007.,  exclusive  of  the  interest  upon  the  funded 
debt,  and  of  the  sinking  fund,  which  together  amounted  to  nearly 
45,000,0007.  more,  and  were  provided  for  by  permanent  taxes. 
Of  the  31,074,0007.  it  was  calculated  that  the  annual  malt  tax 
(8,00'),000/.),  the  annual  or  temporary  excise-duties  continued 
(3,500,0007.),  a  lottery  (yielding  240,0007.),  and  the  sale  of  old 
stores,  would  produce  7,074,0007.  ;  the  remaining  24,000,0007. 
was  to  be  provided  for  by  two  loans  of  12,000,0007.  each,  the 
one  derived  from  the  sinking  fund,  the  other  raised  by  contract. 
The  effect  of  the  first  of  these  borrowing  operations  would  simply 
be  to  reduce  the  sinking  fund  for  the  present  year  to  3,500,0007. ; 
that  of  the  other,  taken  in  conjunction  with  the  repayment  of 
the  bank  advances,  and  of  the  remaining  unfunded  debt  that 
was  to  be  paid  off,  would  be  —  disregarding  the  speculative  ad- 
vantages that  might  accrue  either  to  the  government  or  the  sub- 
scribers from  the  terms  of  the  loan  —  to  add  1,403,0007.  to  the 
amount  of  the  entire  debt.  On  the  whole,  therefore,  the  debt 
would  be  reduced  by  these  operations  to  the  extent  of  somewhat 
more  than  2,000,0007. ;  and  with  the  aid  of  the  new  taxes,  the  re- 
duction might  be  expected  to  be  above  5,000,0007.  Nominally, 
however,  the  new  stock  created  for  the  two  loans  of  24,000,0007. 
was  32,304,01)07.  We  may  notice  under  the  present  head  a  mo- 
tion made  by  Mr.  Tierney  on  the  18th  of  May,  that  the  House 
would  resolve  itself  into  a  committee  of  the  whole  House  to 
take  into  consideration  the  state  of  the  nation,  which,  after  pro- 
ducing one  of  the  longest  debates  of  the  session,  was  negatived 
by  a  majority  of  more  than  two  to  one  (357  against  178)  ;  and  a 
series  of  forty-seven  resolutions  in  favor  of  retrenchment,  which 
were  moved  by  Sir  Henry  Parnell  on  the  1st  of  July,  and  which 
were  disposed  of,  after  a  very  short  debate,  on  the  12th,  by  the 
further  consideration  of  them  being  adjourned  till  that  day  three 
months. 

Not  much  more  of  the  legislation  of  the  session  was  of  any 
historic  importance.  Mr.  Sturges  Bourne  obtained  othergub. 
the  appointment  of  a  new  committee  on  the  poor-laws;  jects  of  legis- 
and  his  bill  for  the  general  amendment  of  these  laws, 
which  had  been  lost  in  the  last  session,  was  revived  and  passed. 
An  act  was  also  passed  to  anr-nil  the  laws  respecting  the  settle- 
ment of  the  poor  so  far  as  regards  renting  tenements.  But  a 
more  comprehensive  measure,  the  object  of  which  was  to  amend 
the  law  of  settlement  generally,  was  lost  in  the  Commons ;  as 
was  another,  to  prevent  the  misapplication  of  the  rates,  on  the 
second  reading  in  the  Lords.  A  bill  was  passed  for  the  regula- 
tion of  cotton-factories,  and  the  better  preservation  of  the  health 
of  young  persons  employed  in  them  by  limiting  the  hours  of 
labor.  An  extension  of  the  Charitable  Foundations  Act  of  thp 


232  HISTORY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [BOOK  I. 

last  session  was  proposed  and  carried  through  the  two  Houses 
under  the  auspices  of  ihe  government ;  the  motion  for  leave  to 
bring  in  the  bill  was  made  by  Lord  Castlereagh  and  seconded 
by  Mr.  Brougham.  It  was  nearly  the  same  with  the  bill  of  last 
session,  as  originally  introduced  and  as  passed  by  the  Commons, 
embracing  charitable  foundations  of  all  descriptions,  as  well  as 
those  connected  with  the  education  of  the  poor.  Not  only  chari- 
ties supported  by  private  subscription,  however,  but  all  institu- 
tions having  special  visitors,  were  excepted;  and  when  Mr. 
Brougham  moved  the  omission  of  the  latter  exemption,  the 
amendment  was  negatived  by  a  majority  of  107  against  75. 
Early  in  the  session,  petitions  complaining  of  the  state  of  the 
criminal  law  were  presented  to  both  Houses  from  the  common 
council  of  the  city  of  London  ;  and  on  the  2d  of  March,  Sir 
James  Mackintosh,  stepping  into  the  space  left  vacant  by  the  la- 
mented Romilly,  moved,  in  an  elaborate  address,  that  a  select 
committee  should  be  appointed  to  consider  of  so  much  of  that 
law  as  related  to  capital  punishments  in  felonies.  The  motion 
was  opposed  by  ministers ;  but  after  a  debate  of  some  length,  it 
was  carried  by  a  majority  of  147  against  128  —  a  result  which 
was  received  with  repeated  cheers.  A  report  from  the  committee 
thus  appointed  was  presented  on  the  6th  of  July  ;  and  after 
another  eloquent  speech  from  Mackintosh,  was  ordered  to  be 
printed.  Committees  were  also  appointed  in  both  Houses,  on  the 
proposition  of  the  government,  to  inquire  into  the  state  of  jails 
and  other  places  of  confinement,  "  and  into  the  best  method  of 
provided  for  the  reformation,  as  well  as  the  safe  custody  and 
punishment,  of  offenders."  A  report,  it  may  be  also  mentioned, 
from  the  commissioners  appointed  the  preceding  year  for  inquir- 
ing into  the  means  of  preventing  the  forgery  of  bank-notes,  was 
presented  by  command  of  the  Prince  Regent  as  soon  as  parlia- 
ment met.  But  the  only  reforms  of  the  criminal  law  of  any  im- 
portance that  were  enacted  during  the  present  session  were  the 
repeal  of  certain  Scotch  statutes,  according  to  which  a  person 
sending  or  bearing  a  challenge  to  fight  a  duel  forfeited  all  his 
movable  property,  and  suffered  banishment,  whether  the  duel  took 
place  or  not ;  and  the  abolition  of  the  old  and  barbarous  right  of 
trial  by  battle,  and  of  appeals  of  murder,  felony,  or  mayhem. 
The  latter  invocation,  however,  suggested  by  a  case  in  which  an 
appeal  of  murder  had  taken  place  in  the  preceding  year,  and  the 
trial  by,  or  wager  of,  battle  had  been  demanded  by  the  appellee, 
was  not  effected  without  some  opposition.  Nobody  stood  up  for 
the  trial  by  battle  either  in  appeals  or  in  writs  of  right,  but  it 
was  maintained  that  the  appeal  of  murder  was  a  great  constitu- 
tional right  which  ought  not  to  be  taken  away.  The  common 
council  of  the  city  of  London  petitioned  that  parliament  would 


CHAP.  XV.]       OTHER  QUESTIONS  DISCUSSED.  233 

not  deprive  the  people  of  their  ancient  and  undoubted  right  of 
appeal  in  criminal  cases  ;  but  an  amendment,  moved  by  Sir  Fran- 
cis Burdett,  with  a  view  of  attaining  the  object  of  this  prayer, 
was,  on  a  division  in  tlie  Commons,  supported  only  by  four  votes 
against  eighty-six.  Nor  was  another  attempt,  made  at  a  subse- 
quent stage  to  preserve  the  appeal  by  Sir  Robert  Wilson,  more 
successful.  Another  min'sterial  measure  was  much  more  obsti- 
nately and  vigorously  resisted  —  what  was  called  the  Foreign 
Enlistment  Bill.  Even  on  the  motion  of  the  Attorney-General 
for  leave  to  bring  in  the  bill,  the  gallery  was  cleared  for  a  divis- 
ion, though  none  took  place.  The  second  reading  was  only  car- 
ried by  the  narrow  majority  of  155  votes  against  142.  An- 
other debate  arose  on  the  motion  for  going  into  committee,  which 
was  made  memorable  by  declamations  of  extraordinary  elo- 
quence from  Mackintosh  on  the  one  side,  and  Canning  on  the 
other.  The  third  reading  gave  rise  to  another  animated  discus- 
sion, followed  by  a  division,  in  which  the  numbers  were  —  ayes, 
190;  noes,  12!).  In  the  Lords,  also,  the  bill  encountered  the 
keenest  opposition ;  an  amendment,  moved  on  the  question  of  its 
committal,  was,  after  a  debate  of  some  length,  supported  by  47 
votes  against  100.  The  object  of  the  act  was  sufficiently  de- 
clared by  its  title,  which  was  :  "  To  prevent  the  enlisting  or  en- 
gagement of  his  majesty's  subjects  to  serve  in  foreign  service,  and 
the  fitting-out  or  equipping  in  his  majesty's  dominions  vessels  for 
warlike  purpo-es,  without  his  majesty's  license."  The  main 
ground  of  objection  to  it  was  its  bearing  upon  the  contest  which 
S|>ain  was  still  carrying  on  in  South  America;  great  numbers  of 
Englishmen  were  now  in  the  service  of  the  several  states  there 
which  had  declared  or  made  good  their  independence ;  and  the 
present  measure  was  looked  upon  as  being  in  effect  and  substan- 
tially a  blow  aimed  at  those  young  communities  yet  struggling  to 
achieve  or  to  complete  their  emancipation,  and  a  quite  uncalled- 
for  helping  hand  held  out  to  their  old  oppressor  in  its  vain  at- 
tempt to  crush  them.  Finally,  among  the  acts  passed  this  ses- 
sion were,  one  to  carry  into  effect  a  treaty  recently  concluded 
with  the  Netherlands  for  the  suppression  of  the  slave-trade,  an- 
other to  amend  the  act  of  the  last  session  for  carrying  into  exe- 
cution the  convention  with  Portugal  on  the  same  subject,  and 
another  to  carry  into  effect  certain  commercial  arrangements 
which  had  been  made  with  Portugal  and  with  the  United  States. 
On  the  1st  of  July,  within  a  few  days  of  the  end  of  the  ses- 
sion, Sir  Francis  Burdett.  for  the  eighteenth  time,  Other 
made  his  annual  motion  on  the  question  of  parliamen-  questions 
tary  reform.  All  that  he  now  proposed,  however,  was,  d 
that  the  House  should  pledge  itself  to  take  the  state  of  the  rep- 
resentation into  its  most  serious  consideration  early  in  the  next 


234  HISTORY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [BOOK  I. 

session  of  parliament.  The  motion  was  seconded  by  Mr.  George 
Lamb  (younger  brother  of  the  late  Lord  Melbourne)  ;  1  but 
neither  he  nor  any  other  speaker  who  supported  it  professed  to 
go  along  with  the  mover  in  the  peculiar  k.nd  of  reform  which  he 
advocated.  Next  to  Sir  Francis's  own  long  and  rambling  ora- 
tion, the  most  prominent  speech  of  the  evening  was  one  delivered 
by  Alderman  Waithman.  Some  of  the  opinions  that  were  ex- 
pressed in  various  quarters  are  curious  enough  when  read  by  the 
light  of  subsequent  events.  All  the  length,  for  instance,  that  Mr. 
Hume  went  on  this  occasion  was  to  observe  that  the  majoriiy  of 
the  people  of  Scotland  were  favorable  to  a  moderate  reform,  and 
that  he  should  vote  for  the  motion  in  compliance  with  the  opin- 
ion of  his  constituents.  Lord  John  Russell,  again,  though  ad- 
mitting the  propriety  of  disfranchising  such  boroughs  as  were 
notoriously  corrupt,  and  of  restricting  the  duration  of  parliament 
to  three  years,  could  not  support  a  motion  "  that  went  the  length 
of  proposing  an  inquiry  into  the  general  state  of  the  representa- 
tion, because  such  an  inquiry  was  calculated  to  throw  a  slur  upon 
the  representation  of  the  country,  and  to  fill  the  minds  of  the 
people  with  vague  and  indefinite  alarms."  On  the  division,  how- 
ever, 58  members  voted  with  Sir  Franci^,  against  153.  More 
success  attended  Lord  Archibald  Hamilton's  efforts  in  the  cause 
of  Scotch  burgh  reform.  This  question  formed  the  subject  of 
two  of  the  most  exciting  contests  of  the  session.  The  election 
of  magistrates  for  the  burgh  of  Aberdeen,  in  1817,  had  been  de- 
clared illegal  by  the  Court  of  Session,  in  the  same  manner  as 
the  Montrose  election  of  the  year  preceding  had  been  ;  but  in 
this  case  the  crown,  when  applied  to  for  a  warrant  to  enable  a 
new  election  to  take  place  —  the  burgh  had  not  been  found  to  be 
disfranchised,  as  Montrose  was  —  had  granted  one  to  the  old 
magistrates  to  elect  their  successors  as  usual,  in  the  face  of  a 
petition  numerously  signed  from  the  burgesses,  that,  as  it  seems 
had  been  usual  in  similar  circumstances,  the  election  should  be 
by  poll  of  the  burgesses  generally.  Lord  Archibald,  on  the  1st 
of  April,  moved  an  address  to  the  Prince  Regent  for  a  copy  of 
this  warrant ;  the  motion  was  strenuously  resisted  by  ministers, 
through  their  organ  the  Lord  Advocate  ;  but  the  vote,  announced 
amid  the  cheers  of  the  minority,  was  not  a  triumphant  one  for 
the  learned  lord,  his  majority  being  only  one  of  five  in  a  House  of 
two  hundred  and  fifteen  members.  This  was  a  victory  ominous 

i  Mr.   Lamb  has   been   returned  for  the  part  of  the  mob.     His  (then  radi- 

Westminster  on  the  vacancy  occasioned  cal)  opponent  was  the  present  Sir  (then 

by  the  death  of  Sir  Samuel   Romilly,  Mr.)J.  C.  Hobhouse;  and  the  numbers 

after  a  contest  which  lasted  fr.un  the  at    the  close    of  the    poll    were  —  for 

13th  of  February  till  the  3d  of  March,  Lamb,  4465;   for  Hobhouse,  3861.    38 

and  which  was  distinguished  through-  votes  were  also  given  for  Major  Carfc- 

out  by  the  most  violent  proceedings  on  wright. 


CHAP.  XV.l     PROROGATION  OF  PARLIAMENT.  235 

of  coming  defeat.  On  the  6th  of  May,  Lord  Archibald  brought 
forward  the  general  question  by  moving  that  a  great  number  of 
petitions,  which  had  been  presented  in  the  course  of  the  session 
from  the  Scotch  royal  burghs,  should  be  referred  to  a  select  com- 
mittee. Of  the  sixty-six  royal  burghs,  thirty-nine,  containing  a 
population  of  above  420,000  souls,  had  by  this  time  voted  reso- 
lutions in  favor  of  reform  ;  while  of  the  remaining  twenty-seven 
small  burghs,  the  population  amounted  altogether  to  only  about 
60,000.  The  preponderance  of  opinion  in  Scotland  on  the  side 
of  burgh  reform  might  therefore  be  taken  to  be  as  seven  to  one 
among  the  persons  most  interested  in  the  matter,  and  most  com- 
petent to  form  a  judgment  upon  it.  Lord  Archibald's  present 
motion  was  opposed  almost  exclusively  on  the  ground  of  the 
alleged  connection  of  burgh  with  parliamentary  reform  ;  but  it 
was  carried  on  a  division,  in  a  considerably  fuller  House,  by  the 
same  majority  by  which  his  former  one  had  been  defeated,  the 
numbers  being  —  ayes,  149  ;  noes,  144.  Before  the  session  ter- 
minated, a  report  was  presented  from  the  committee,  in  which 
they  declared  that  the  general  allegations  of  the  petitioners  ap- 
peared to  be  borne  out  by  the  evidence.  Another  question  on 
which  the  struggle  of  party  in  the  House  of  Commons  was  equally 
close  or  doubtful,  was  that  of  Catholic  emancipation.  It  was 
brought  forward  on  the  3d  of  May,  in  the  Commons,  by  Grattan,  in 
the  shape  of  a  motion  that  the  state  of  the  laws  by  which  oaths 
were  required  to  be  taken,  or  declarations  made,  as  qualifications 
for  tlie  enjoyment  of  offices  and  the  exercise  of  civil  functions, 
so  far  as  they  affected  Roman  Catholics,  should  be  immediately 
taken  into  consideration  in  a  committee  of  the  whole  House.  It 
was  the  last  time  that  the  great  Irish  patriot's  eloquent  voice  was 
destined  to  be  heard  on  that  theme  —  almost  the  last  time,  in- 
deed, that  he  was  to  take  part  in  any  parliamentary  discussion ; 
the  debate  that  followed  his  opening  speech  was  cut  short  by  the 
clamor  of  the  House  for  the  vote,  before  either  Canning,  Plunket, 
or  any  other  of  the  more  eminent  speakers  on  either  side  had 
risen ;  several  members  were  shut  out  from  the  unexpected  di- 
vision ;  but  the  numbers,  as  ultimately  settled,  were  241  for  the 
motion,  and  2  13  against  it.  A  fortnight  later,  a  similar  motion 
was  made  in  the  Lords  by  Lord  Donoughmore,  and  was  nega- 
tived, after  a  long  debate,  by  a  majority  of  147  against  106. 

Parliament  was  prorogued,  on  the  loth  of  July,  by  the  Prince 
Regent  in  person.  His  royal  highness  spoke  of  at-  prorogation, 
tempts  which  had  recently  been  made  in  some  of  the  isthjuiy. 
manufacturing  districts  to  take  advantage  of  circumstances  of 
local  distress  to  excite  a  spirit  of  disaffection,  and  urged  the 
members  of  the  legislature,  on  their  return  to  their  several 
counties,  to  use  their  utmost  endeavors  in  cooperation  with  the 


236  HISTORY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [BOOK  I. 

magistracy,  to  defeat  the  machinations  of  those  who,  under  the 
pretence  of  reform,  had  in  reality  no  other  object  but  the  subver- 
sion of  the  constitution.  The  origin,  course,  and  issue  of  the 
state  of  things  which  had  thus  begun  to  darken  the  political 
horizon  will  now  demand  our  attention. 


CHAP.  XVI.]     CONDITION  OF  THE   GOVERNMENT.  237 


CHAPTER  XVI. 

THE  first  session  of  the  new  parliament  had  not  strengthened 
the  ministry  either  with  the  country  or  even  in  their  Condition 
own  estimation.  "  The  ministry,"  Mr.  Ward  writes  in  of  the  gor- 
the  beginning  of  June,  "is  in  a  strange  state.  The  ma-  e 
jority  of  the  House  of  Commons  seems  equally  determined  upon 
two  points :  first,  that  it  shall  always  stumble ;  second,  that  it 
shall  not  fall.  The  result  of  the  great  battle  that  was  fought 
upon  Tierney's  motion  [for  a  committee  on  the  state  of  the  na- 
tion, on  the  18th  of  May,  when  ministers  had  a  majority  of  more 
than  two  to  one]  seemed  to  promise  more  strength,  but  Thursday 
night  [the  3d  of  June,  when  the  second  reading  of  the  Foreign 
Enlistment  Bill  was  only  carried  by  a  majority  of  thirteen]  was 
a  complete  relapse  into  languid  support  and  negligent  attendance. 
You  may  judge  what  opinion  is  formed  by  persons  whose  trade 
it  is  to  understand  such  matters,  of  the  honesty  and  firmness  of 
the  present  parliament,  when  I  tell  you  that  the  dinner  which 
the  Prince  gives  to-day  to  some  opposition  lords  was  gravely 
assigned  by  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  as  a  reason  for  the  bad 
division  to  which  I  have  just  alluded  upon  the  Enlistment  Bill." 
The  defect  would  seem,  from  this  account,  to  have  been  rather 
One  of  discipline  than  of  honesty ;  incidental,  perhaps,  in  any 
circumstances  to  a  first  session,  and  in  a  higher  degree  to  a  par- 
liament having  so  precarious  a  tenure  of  existence  as  the  present. 
It  would  appear,  however,  from  disclosures  which  have  recently 
been  made,  that  at  one  time  in  the  course  of  the  session  ministers 
had  seriously  contemplated  a  resignation,  and  that  in  consequence 
not  merely  of  the  unmanageableness  of  the  House  of  Commons, 
but  also  of  differences  of  opinion  among  themselves.  We  have 
seen  that  when  they  met  parliament,  they  had  not  made  up  their 
minds  upon  any  particular  plan  for  settling  the  important  and 
pressing  question  of  the  resumption  of  cash  payments  by  the 
bank.  Mr.  Peel  stated  distinctly,  in  proposing  the  arrangement 
which  was  actually  adopted,  that  he  h:id  been  made  a  convert  to 
the  principles  upon  which  it  was  based  by  the  evidence  that  had 
been  adduced  before  the  secret  committee.  The  avowal  of  these 
principles  by  the  government  was  a  retractation  altogether  uuex- 


238  HISTORY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [BOOK  L 

pected  at  the  time.  In  the  same  letfer  to  which  we  have  just 
referred,  Mr.  Ward  writes  from  London  to  his  friend  at  Oxford  i1 
"  Those  ihat  are  near  the  scene  of  action  are  not  less  surprised 
than  yourself  at  the  turn  the  bullion  question  has  taken.  Can- 
ning says  it  is  tlie  greatest  wonder  that  he  has  witnessed  in  the 
political  world."  In  a  preceding  letter,  written  from  Paris  soon 
after  the  announcement  of  the  new  profession  of  faith  by  his  old 
friends  had  readied  him,  the  same  shrewd  observer,  himself, 
though  no  zealot  in  politics,  a  steady  ministerialist,  with  all  the 
ordinary  sympathies  of  a  party  man,  and  just  about  to  start  for 
England  to  take  his  seat  in  the  new  parliament,  to  which  he  had 
been  returned  on  a  vacancy,  after  having  been  thrown  out  at  the 
general  election,  had  thus  expressed  his  opinion  of  the  condition 
of  the  government  :'z  "I  presume  your  friend  Van  [  Vansittart] 
will  be  turned  out.  Indeed,  it  is  difficult  to  conceive  he  should 
stay  in  after  the  committee  has  reported  upon  principles  directly 
opposite  to  his  own.  But  his  removal,  and  the  substitution  of 
Peel  or  Huskisson,  will  by  no  means  cure  the  defects  of  the  pres- 
ent ministry,  which  has  suffered  itself  to  be  dragged  through  the 
dirt  the  whole  session.  For  the  sake  of  the  country,  as  well  as 
for  its  own,  it  ought  to  make  some  effort  to  raise  itself  from  the 
state  of  discredit  and  insignificance  into  which  it  has  fallen  ;  occa- 
sioned not  so  much  by  great  strength  or  clear  justice  on  the  side 
of  its  opponents,  as  by  the  wavering  conduct  of  lazy,  capricious, 
pragmatical  friends,  and  by  its  own  want  of  courage  in  not  pro- 
posing to  them  the  alternative  of  a  more  vigorous  administration, 
or  of  instant  resignation.  As  it  is,  we  have  a  most  vigorous  min- 
istry, but  no  government ;  an  evil  which,  if  it  endures  much 
longer,  will  be  severely  felt  both  at  home  and  abroad."  A  letter 
from  Lord  Liverpool  to  Lord  Eldon,  which  Mr.  Twiss  has  pub- 
lished, shows  that  the  view  of  matters  taken  by  the  prime-min- 
ister himself  at  this  time  closely  coincided  with  that  which  Mr. 
Ward  thus  expressed.  The  defeat  of  the  government  on  Sir 
James  Mackintosh's  motion  for  a  select  committee  on  the  state  of 
the  criminal  law,  the  large  minority  on  the  Roman  Catholic  ques- 
tion, and  again  the  success  of  Lord  Archibald  Hamilton's  motion 
for  Scotch  burgh  reform,  had  shown,  as  Mr.  Twiss  observes,  un- 
der what  imperfect  control  the  House  of  Commons  was.  When 
the  plan  to  be  taken  for  the  restoration  of  a  metallic  currency 
was  first  proposed  in  the  cabinet,  it  is  conjectured  not  to  have  met 
with  the  concurrence  of  the  Lord  Chancellor;  and  in  a  communi- 
cation to  the  premier,  he  appears  to  have  suggested  the  postpone- 
ment of  the  question  for  a  couple  of  years.  Lord  Liverpool's 
reply  is  dated  the  10th  of  May.  After  expressing  his  con- 
cern to  find  that  they  differ  on  so  essential  a  point,  his  lordship 
i  Letters  of  the  Earl  of  Dudley,  p.  222.  »  Ibid.  p.  218. 


CHAP.  XVL]     CONTINUED  REFORM  AGITATION.  239 

proceeds : l  "  I  am  sanguine  enough  to  think  that  we  have  a  rea- 
sonable chance  of  success  in  carrying  the  measures  which  were 
discussed  on  Saturday ;  but,  whether  I  may  turn  out  to  be  right 
or  wrong,  as  to  this  1  am  quite  satisfied,  after  long  and  anxious 
consideration,  that,  if  we  cannot  carry  what  lias  been  proposed,  it 
is  far,  far  better  for  the  country  that  we  should  cease  to  be  the 
government.  After  the  defeats  we  have  already  experienced 
during  this  session,  our  remaining  in  office  is  a  positive  evil.  It 
confounds  all  ideas  of  government  in  the  minds  of  men.  It  dis- 
graces us  personally,  and  renders  us  less  capable  every  day  of 
being  of  any  real  service  to  the  country,  either  now  or  hereafter. 
If,  therefore,  things  are  to  remain  as  they  are,  I  am  quite  clear 
that  there  is  no  advantage,  in  any  way,  in  our  being  the  persons 
to  carry  on  the  public  service.  A  strong  and  decisive  effort  can 
alone  redeem  our  character  and  credit,  and  is  as  necessary  for  the 
country  as  it  is  for  ourselves.  As  to  a  postponement  for  two 
years,  it  would  be  mere  sell-delusion,  and  is  far  more  objectiona- 
ble, in  my  judgment,  in  every  bearing,  than  at  once  renouncing 
all  idea  of  setting  the  finances  of  the  country  riglit."  2  There  is 
reason  to  believe  that  the  bold  course  ta^en  by  ministers  on  the 
bank  question  did  produce  something  of  the  effect  which  Lord 
Liverpool  anticipated,  and  strengthened  them  both  within  the 
walls  of  parliament  and  out  of  doors.  We  find  Lord  Sidmouth 
writing  to  Lord  Exmouth  on  the  21st  of  June  :  "  The  close  of 
our  parliamentary  campaign  is  far  more  satisfactory  than  its  com- 
mencement. The  government  has  now  received  decisive  proofs 
of  that  degree  of  confidence  without  which  it  could  not  be  con- 
ducted honorably  to  our.-elves,  or  usefully  to  the  public."  The 
Home  Secretary  and  his  colleagues,  however,  had  got  released 
only  for  a  very  *hort  time  from  the  warfare  of  parliament,  when 
they  found  themselves  in  the  thick  of  another  of  a  different  and 
more  serious  description. 

Reform  meetings  had  continued  to  be  held  occasionally  in   the 
manufacturing  districts  from  the  beginning  of  the  year.   Continuance 
It  was  on  the  18th  of  January  that  Orator  Hunt  made   of  reform 
his  first  appearance  in  a  public  capacity  in  Manchester.   asitatlon- 

1  Life  of  Lord  Eldon,  ii.  p.  329.  This,  at  least,  may  have  been  all  tlie 

2  \Ve  may  remark,  however,  that  this  dissent   that   lie   professed.      We   may 
letter  hardly  bears  out  the  interpreta-  admit  that  the  new  monetary  doctrine 
tion  put  upon  it  bv  Mr.  Twiss.  that  the  was  not  likely  to  find  the  readiest  01 
Chancellor  did  not  at  first  concur  with  most  enthusiastic  of  disciples  either  in 
the  majority  of  the  cabinet  in  their  fa-  Kldon  or  Vansittart;  but  it  is  hardly  to 
vorabh  opinion  of  Mr.  Kicardo's  plan,  be  supposed  that  any   member  of  the 
His  difference  with  Lord  Liverpool  may  cabinet  could  have  deferred  to  so  late  a 
have  been  simply  on  the  prudence  or  moment  an  intimation  of  absolute  hos- 
I'xpeiliency  of  the  government  taking  tility  to  the  principles  of  the  govern- 
its  stand  upon  that  plan,  and  endeav-  meet  plan.     The  report  of  both  the  sc- 
oring to  force  it  at  the  present  moment  cret  committees  had  by  this  time  been 
upon    the    acceptance   of   parliament,  presented. 


240  HISTORY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [BOOK  I. 

Application  had  been  made  to  the  borough  reeve  and  constables 
to  summon  a  meeting  to  petition  parliament  for  the  repeal  of  the 
corn-law.  On  their  refusal  an  anonymous  advertisement  ap- 
peared, fixing  the  meeting  for  the  day  we  have  mentioned.  Hunt, 
who  had  acce.pten  ar  invitation  to  preside,  was  met  by  the  mul- 
titude, and  conducted  into  the  town  in  a  style  which  must  have 
been  very  soothing  to  his  vanity  —  flags  with  the  mottoes  of 
"  No  Corn- laws,"  "  Universal  Suffrage,"  "  Rights  of  Man," 
"  Hunt  and  Liberty,"  being  borne  before  him  ;  the  gathering- 
place  was  that  same  St.  Peter's  Field,  soon  to  be  made  so  famous 
by  the  events  of  another  day.  Hunt  in  his  speech  derided  the 
proposal  of  petitioning  parliament,  and  the  demand  of  the  assem- 
bly was  put  into  the  form  of  a  remonstrance  to  the  Prince 
Regent ;  other  speeches,  of  more  or  less  violence,  were  delivered  ; 
and  then  the  people  peaceably  dispersed.  An  evening  or  two 
after  this,  Hunt  was  roughly  handled  in  the  theatre  at  Manches- 
ter by  some  officers  of  the  7th  Hussars,  who  alleged  that  he  had 
hissed  when  "  God  save  the  King  "  was  called  for,  —  an  incident 
which,  of  course,  he  did  not  fail  to  turn  to  account.  He  imme- 
diately wrote  to  the  Duke  of  York,  the  Commander-in-Chief,  and 
published  his  letter.  At  the  same  time  he  wrote  to  Samuel 
Bamford  at  Middleton,  requesting  that  zealous  follower,  as  he 
then  was,  to  come  to  him.1  When  they  met  the  next  day,  he 
directed  Bamford  to  procure  some  ten  or  a  dozen  stout  fellows  to 
take  their  places  in  the  pit  on  the  evening  of  the  following  Mon- 
day, when  he  would  again  present  himself  in  the  theatre.  On 
the  appointed  night  Bamford  was  at  the  pit-door  by  six  o'clock, 
accompanied  by  nine  other  Middleton  cotton  or  silk  weavers, 
picked  men,  each  armed  with  a  stout  cudgel.  The  ten  rough- 
looking  country  fellows  had  attracted  some  notice  as  they  passed 
through  the  streets.  Bamford  gives  a  graphic  description  of 
them,  which  we  quote  the  rather  as  it  must  be  understood  to  set 
before  us  the  writer's  own  personal  appearance,  at  least  in  gen- 
eral outline :  "  They  were  all  young  men  —  tall,  gaunt,  and 
square-built  —  long-legged,  free-limbed,  and  lithe  as  stag-hounds; 
and  as  they  went  tramp,  tramp,  along  the  flags,  people  looked, 
startled,  and  looked  again  ;  while  the  observed  ones,  nothing 
noticing,  went  onwards  like  men  who  knew  their  work,  and 
were  both  able  and  willing  to  perform  it."  A  crowd  soon  col- 
lected and  filled  the  street  in  which  the  theatre  stood ;  but  any 
serious  mischief  was  prevented  by  the  prudent  determination  of 
the  manager  to  have  no  performance  that  evening.  Hunt,  how- 
ever, had  his  triumph,  and  one  which  suited  his  purpose  as  well, 
and  was  probably  quite  as  much  to  his  taste,  as  would  have  been 
any  he  could  have  had  in  a  melee  within  the  walls  of  the  theatre. 
1  Life  of  a  Radical,  i.  pp.  169-176. 


CHAP.  XVI.]         CONDITION  OF  THE  PEOPLE.  241 

After  some  time  a  coach  drove  into  the  street,  and  on  its  being 
ascertained  to  contain  the  great  popular  champion  and  some  of 
his  friends,  a  loud  huzza  burst  from  the  dense  multitude.  A  few 
hisses  were  soon  silenced.  "Hunt,"  continues  Bamford,  "then 
mounted  the  box,  and,  addressing  the  people,  staled  that  the 
manager  had  written  to  him,  saying  there  would  not  be  any  per- 
formance that  night,  and  requesting,  I  think,  that  he  would  come 
up  and  try  to  get  the  people  to  disperse  and  go  home.  He  next 
entered  on  some  general  topics,  and,  with  singular  had  taste,  to 
say  the  least  of  it  —  for  his  impetuosity  overran  his  judgment  — 
he  said  the  authorities  only  wanted  a  pretext  to  let  the  bloody 
butchers  of  Waterloo  loose  upon  the  people  ;  and  concluded  by 
advising  them  to  retire  to  their  homes  peaceably.  We  then  gave 
three  cheers,  the  carriage  disappeared,  and  the  street  was  soon 
deserted.  Our  party  went  to  the  Robin  Hood,  where  we  were 
joined  by  a  score  or  two  of  others,  and  we  set  to,  and  caroused 
until  midnight,  and  then  returned  home." 

The  rest  of  the  winter  and  the  spring  passed  in  quiet,  and 
without  any  movement  among  the  working  classes  to  Conditioil 
excite  alarm  or  uneasiness.  As  the  year  advanced,  oftiepeo- 
however,  a  growing  depression  in  the  labor-market  was  p  e' 
experienced  in  all  the  districts  of  the  kingdom  wh(jre  the  popula- 
tion was  the  most  numerous.  The  biographer  of  Lord  Sidrnouth 
has  printed  a  letter  addressed  to  that  minister,  in  December  of 
the  preceding  year,  by  Lord  Sheffield  (Gibbon's  friend),  in  which 
the  writer,  a  very  oil  man,  but  with  his  faculties  still  entire  and 
active,  and  accustomed  all  his  life  to  watch  the  fluctuations  in 
the  economical  state  of  the  country,  reports  his  views  both  on  the 
actual  condition  of  things  at  that  moment  and  on  the  prospects 
of  the  future.1  He  cannot,  he  says,  resist  the  pleasure  of  com- 
municating the  very  satisfactory  accounts  he  has  received  of  the 
state  of  trade  and  manufactures  from  different  parts,  and  espe- 
cially from  the  neighborhood  of  Birmingham,  the  rest  of  War- 
wickshire, and  from  Staffordshire.  "  Both  trade  and  manufac- 
tures," he  goes  on  to  observe,  "  are  in  a  flourishing  condition,  and 
likely  to  improve  still  further.  There  appears  to  be  little  specu- 
lation beyond  the  regular  demands  of  the  different  markets,  men 
without  adequate  capital  finding  it  almost  impossible  to  procure 
credit ;  so  that  there  is  now  no  disposition  to  force  a  trade,  and 
no  injurious  competition  among  the  merchants  to  procure  the 
execution  of  orders,  and,  consequently,  wages  are  fair  and  rea- 
sonable." In  point  of  fact,  however,  although  Lord  Sheffield  was 
correct  in  his  belief  that  the  season  of  unsafe  speculation  had 
passed  away,  he  wras  too  hasty  or  too  sanguine  in  assuming  that 
the  mischievous  results  of  the  late  extravagant  overtrading  were 
*  Lite  of  Lord  Sidmouth,  iii.  p.  242. 

VOL.   II.  16 


242  HISTOKY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [BOOK  I. 

yet  exhausted.  It  has  been  common  to  attribute  the  commercial 
pressure  which  was  felt  throughout  the  spring  and  summer  of 
this  year  1819,  in  whole  or  in  part,  to  the  measures  that  were 
taken  by  the  legislature  for  the  restoration  of  a  metallic  or  at 
least  convertible  currency,  and  the  contraction  of  the  circulation 
to  which  the  bank  is  assumed  to  have  been  thereby  driven  in  its 
own  defence.  Mr.  Tooke  1  has  demonstrated  the  entirely  imagi- 
nary nature  of  this  theory  by  many  facts  and  considerations,  and 
especially  by  the  fact  that  the  bank  did  not  reduce  its  issues  dur- 
ing the  period  of  the  pressure,  and  that  no  such  contraction  of 
the  circulation  as  is  alleged  then  took  place.  The  amount  of 
Bank  of  England  paper  in  circulation  was,  on  the  contrary,  rather 
greater  in  August  than  it  had  been  in  February.  The  late  exces- 
sive importations,  however,  were  continuing  to  produce  their  nat- 
ural effects,  or  rather  the  consequent  and  inevitable  fall  of  prices 
was  at  last  bringing  down  the  speculators  in  great  numbers ;  the 
bankruptcies  in  each  of  the  six  months  from  February  to  July 
inclusive  were  about  double  the  ordinary  average ;  credit  sus- 
tained a  shock  ;  the  interest  of  money  rose  ;  while  the  glut  in  the 
market  of  commodities  obstructed  the  channels,  the  pressure  in 
the  money  -  market  clogged  the  wheels  of  trade  ;  finally,  the 
market  of  labor  came  in  for  its  share  of  the  universal  depression  ; 
employment  became  more  difficult  to  be  procured;  wages  fell. 
At  the  same  time  food  maintained  a  high  price  ;  wheat,  which 
had  been  at  80s.  in  February,  had  only  fallen  to  685.  lOrf.  in 
June,  and  had  risen  again  to  75s.  in  August.  The  first  meetings 
of  the  operative  classes,  accordingly,  were  called  to  consider  the 
low  rate  of  wages.  Such  were  those  of  the  gingham-weavers  of 
Carlisle  and  the  neighborhood  in  the  end  of  May.  These  were 
succeeded,  towards  the  middle  of  the  following  month,  by  others 
at  Hunslet  Moor  near  Leeds,  at  Glasgow,  and  at  Ashton-under- 
Lyne,  which  assumed  more  of  a  political  character,  but  at  which 
the  distress  under  which  the  people  were  suffering  still  supplied 
the  text  of  every  speech,  and  parliamentary  reform  and  other 
such  measures  were  proposed  and  recommended  chiefly  as  reme- 
dies for  that.  The  agitation,  however,  grew  bolder  as  it  pro- 
ceeded ;  and  the  government  now  began  to  look  at  what  was 
going  on  with  considerable  anxiety  and  apprehension.  Still  no 
breach  of  the  public  peace  had  been  committed.  On  occasion  of 
the  Glasgow  meeting,  which  took  place  on  the  1 6th,  a  large  body 
of  military  was  in  readiness  to  act ;  the  multitude  which  assem- 
bled on  the  Green  that  summer  afternoon  amounted,  it  is  sup- 
posed, to  between  thirty  and  forty  thousand  persons ;  but  after 
going  through  their  work,  they  dispersed  as  quietly  as  if  they  had 
been  only  three  or  four  met  together.  What  took  place  at  tbia 
1  History  of  Prices,  ii.  p.  <J4,  &c. 


CHAP.  XVI.]  POLITICAL  AGITATION.  243 

convention,  however,  illustrates  the  natural  course  of  mob  delib- 
eration. The  people,  mostly  poor  cotton-weavers,  either  out  of 
employment  or  working  at  the  lowest  wages,  appear  to  have  been 
drawn  together  in  the  first  instance  simply  by  the  hope  of  getting 
something  done  which  might  better  their  condition  ;  the  resolu- 
tions proposed  by  the  parties  that  had  called  the  meeting,  after  a 
.statement  of  the  prevailing  distress,  concluded  with  a  petition  to 
the  Prince  Regent  to  the  effect  that  his  royal  highness  would  be 
graciously  pleased  to  afford  such  of  their  number  as  wished  it  the 
means  of  emigrating  to  Canada,  the  emigrants  engaging  to  repay 
the  expense  by  yearly  remittances  of  produce.  But  upon  these 
original  resolutions  an  amendment  was  moved,  declaring  that  no 
good  was  to  be  expected  from  anything  except  annual  parlia- 
ments, universal  suffrage,  and  a  diminution  of  taxation  ;  speeches 
were  delivered  scouting  alike  emigration  and  petitioning,  unless 
indeed  the  people,  as  was  strongly  recommended,  would  march  in 
a  body  to  London,  and  present  their  petition  to  the  Regent  them- 
selves ;  and  in  the  end  the  amendment  was  declared  to  be  carried, 
though  the  vote  in  its  favor  was  obtained,  as  is  alleged,  only  by 
its  supporters  having  taken  possession  of  the  space  immediately 
around  the  hustings,  and  knocking  down  the  hats  and  uplifted 
hands  of  their  opponents,  whose  peaceable  disposition  prevented 
them  from  resenting  or  resisting  such  treatment.  The  oratory  at 
the  Ashton-under-Lyne  meeting  —  where  the  chair  was  taken  by 
a  person  calling  himself  the  Rev.  Joseph  Harrison,  and  one  of 
the  speakers  was  the  self-taught,  or  rather  untaught,  medical 
practitioner,  Dr.  Healey,  who  makes  so  amusing  a  figure  in  Barn- 
ford's  autobiography  —  was  still  more  violent  and  extravagant. 
At  another  great  meeting,  which  took  place  at  Stockport  on  the 
2;Sth  of  June,  the  chairman  was  Sir  Charles  Wolseley,  Bart., 
who  appeai-s  to  have  made  his  debut  on  this  occasion.  In  an  ad- 
dress which  he  delivered  before  descending  from  his  post  of  honor, 
Sir  Charles,  after  swearing  to  be  faithful  to  the  cause  of  annual 
parliaments  and  universal  suffrage  so  long  as  his  heart's  blood 
should  flow  in  his  veins,  informed  his  admiring  auditors  that  his 
political  career  had  commenced  in  France,  that  he  was  one  of 
those  who  mounted  the  ramparts  of  the  Bastille  at  the  commence- 
ment of  the  revolution  in  that  country,  and  that,  if  he  did  that 
for  France,  he  should  never  shrink  from  attacking  the  Bastilles 
of  his  own  country.  At  this  meeting,  one  of  the  insignia  dis- 
played from  the  hustings  was  the  cap  of  liberty  on  the  top  of  a 
flag-staff.  On  that  day  fortnight,  the  12th  of  July,  another  meet- 
ing was  held  at  New  Hall-hill,  near  Birmingham,  where  Sir 
Charles  Wolseley  was  elected  "  legislatorial  attorney  and  repre- 
sentative "  for  that  town.  This  transaction  seems  to  have  star- 
tled government  more  than  anything  that  had  yet  taken  place, 


244  HISTORY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [BOOK  I. 

and  probably  determined  it  not  to  stand  any  longer  aloof.  In- 
dictments were  now  presented  both  against  \Volseley  and  Harri- 
son for  seditious  words  spoken  at  the  Stockport  meeting,  and, 
true  bills  having  been  found  by  the  grand  jury,  Sir  Charles  was 
arrested  at  his  own  house  of  Wolseley  Park,  in  Staffordshire,  on 
the  19th.  On  the  21st,  a  meeting  was  held  at  Smith6eld  in  Lon- 
don, at  which  Hunt  presided  ;  it  had  been  announced  for  some 
time,  and  was  looked  forward  to  with  considerable  apprehension  ; 
a  strong  force,  both  civil  and  military,  was  stationed  at  various 
points  in  the  vicinity  of  the  place ;  but  the  demeanor  of  the 
assembled  people  was  perfectly  peaceable  from  first  to  last. 
Here  Harrison  was  arrested  on  the  hustings,  by  the  same  con- 
stable. Buck,  who  had  taken  Sir  Charles  AVblseley  into  custody 
two  days  before,  and  who  the  next  day,  on  bringing  Harrison  to 
Stockport,  was  there  attacked  by  some  of  the  friends  anil  dis- 
ciples of  his  prisoner,  one  of  whom  fired  a  pistol  at  him,  and 
lodged  the  bullet  in  his  body. 

Three  remarkable  innovations  are  particularized  in  the  con- 
temporary accounts  as  having  distinguished  the  pres- 
in°the  re-  ent  stage  of  the  popular  movement.  It  is  stated  to 
form  more-  have  been  now  that  the  reformers  first  assumed  the 
name  of  Radicals.  We  have  given  in  a  former 
page1  Bamford's  account  of  the  origin  of  female  reform 
ciations.  u  An  entirely  novel  and  truly  portentous  circum- 
stance," says  the  "  Annual  Register  "  for  1819,  u  was  the  forma- 
tion of  a  Female  Rt form  Society  at  Blackburn,  near  Manches- 
ter, from  which  circular  -  letters  were  issued,  inviting  the  wives 
and  daughters  of  workmen  in  different  branches  of  manufacture 
to  form  sister  societies,  for  the  purpose  of  cooperating  with  the 
men,  and  of  instilling  into  the  minds  of  their  children  '  a  deep- 
rooted  hatred  of  our  tyrannical  rulers.'  A  deputation  from  this 
society  attended  the  Black'mrn  reform  meeting,  and.  mounting  the 
scaffold,  presented  a  cap  of  liberty  and  an  address  to  the  assembly. 
The  example  of  these  females  was  successfully  recommended  to 
imitation  by  the  orators  at  other  meetings."  The  Blackburn 
meeting  here  alluded  to  appears  to  have  been  held  on  the  5th  of 
July.  The  third  circumstance  is  the  military  training  alleged  to 
_„„  have  been  now  practised  by  the  reformers.  There  is, 

and  can  be,  no  dispute  about  the  fart ;  the  only  ques- 
tion is  as  to  the  design  or  object  of  the  practice.  Numerous 
informations  upon  this  matter  were  taken  by  the  Lancashire 
magistrates,  and  transmitted  to  the  government,  in  the  first  djys 
of  August.  We  find  one  of  the  magistrates  writing  to  Lord 
Sidmouth  on  the  5th  of  that  month,  that  "  the  drilling  parties 
increase  very  extensively."  On  the  7th,  several  persons  state 

i  See  ante,  p.  219. 


CHAP.  XVI.]       DRILLING   OF   THE   RADICALS.  245 

upon  oath,  that  "  in  various  parts  of  the  neighborhood  of  Bury 
there  are  nightly  assemblies  of  great  numbers  of  men,  who  meet 
together  to  learn  and  practise  military  training."  Other  witnesses 
swear,  on  the  9th,  to  having  seen  the  same  thing  going  on  in  the 
neighborhood  of  Bolton.  Many  of  the  informations  relate  to 
the  drilling  of  a  large  number  of  persons  on  Sunday,  the  8th, 
at  Tanclle  Hill,  near  Rochdale.  One  of  the  informants  speaks 
of  a  man  who  told  him  that  he  had  been  drilled  there  on  that 
day,  and  that  a  similar  meeting  would  take  place  on  the  Sunday 
following,  but  that  that  would  be  the  last.  These  dates  are  very 
important.  An  impression  was  generally  produced  at  the  time 
that  the  training  had  been  going  on  in  secret  for  a  long  while, 
and  that  it  was  a  part  of  the  general  tactics  of  the  radical  reform 
movement,  the  dark  purpose  of  which  was  placed  beyond  doubt 
by  the  extreme  care  with  which  the  practice  had  been  concealed 
for  many  mouths.  But  there  is,  in  fact,  no  evidence  whatever 
to  show  that  anything  of  the  kind  existed  anywhere  previous  to 
these  first  days  of  the  month  of  August ;  and  we  have  just  seen 
that  the  persons  engaged  in  the  drilling  themselves  spoke  of  it 
with  perfect  frankness,  as  far  as  appears,  and  without  seeming  to 
have  any  intention  to  deceive,  as  something  that  would  be  all 
over  in  a  few  days.  It  has  all  I  he  look  of  having  been  merely 
a  preparation  for  some  particular  occasion.  That  it  was  really 
nothing  more  we  are  assured  by  Bamford.  It  was,  according  to 
his  straightforward  account,1  adopted  solely  with  a  view  to  the 
great  meeting  to  be  held  at  Manchester  on  the  16th  of  this 
month.  "It  was  deemed  expedient,"  says  Bamford,  "  that  this 
meeting  should  be  as  morally  effective  as  possible,  and  that  it 
should  exhibit  a  spectacle  such  as  had  never  before  been  wit- 
nessed in  England.  We  had  frequently  been  taunted  by  the 
press  with  our  ragged,  dirty  appearance  at  these  assemblages ; 
with  the  confusion  of  our  proceedings,  and  the  mob-like  crowds 
in  which  our  numbers  were  mustered ;  and  we  determined  that, 
for  once  at  least,  these  reflections  should  not  be  deserved." 
Of  four  injunctions  issued  by  the  committees,  the  observance  of 
two  —  cleanliness  and  sobriety  —  was  left  to  the  good  sense  of 
individuals;  that  of  the  other  two,  order  and  peace,  was  provided 
for  by  general  regulations.  The  drilling  was  the  discipline 
adopted  to  secure  order  in  their  movements.  "These  drillings," 
Bamford  adds,  "  were  also,  to  our  sedentary  weavers  and  spin- 
ners, periods  of  healthful  exercise  and  enjoyment When 

dusk  came,  and  we  could  no  longer  see  to  work,  we  jumped  from 
our  looms,  rushed  to  the  sweet,  cool  air  of  the  fields,  or  the 

waste  lands,  or  the  green  lane-sides Or,  in  the  gray  of 

a  fine  Sunday  morn,  we  would  saunter  through  the    mists,  fra- 
1  Life  of  a  Radical,  i.  pp.  177-180. 


246  HISTORY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [BOOK  L 

grant  with  the  night  odor  of  flowers  and  of  new  hay,  and,  as- 
cending  the  Tandle  Hills,  salute  the  broad  sun  as  he  climbed 

from  behind  the  high  moors  of  Saddleworth There  was 

not  any  arms  —  no  use  for  any  —  no  pretence  for  any ;  nor 
would  they  have  been  permitted.  Some  of  the  elderly  men,  the 
old  soldiers,  or  those  who  came  to  watch,  might  bring  a  walk- 
ing-staff; or  a  young  fellow  might  pull  a  stake  from  a  hedge 
in  going  to  drill,  or  in  returning  home  ;  but,  assuredly,  we  had 
nothing  like  arms  about  us.  There  were  no  armed  meetings ; 
there  were  no  midnight  drillings.  Why  should  we  seek  to  con- 
ceal what  we  had  no  hesitation  in  performing  in  broad  day  ? 
There  was  not  anything  of  the  sort."  We  believe  this  to  be  the 
true  account  of  the  matter ;  and  that  the  government,  the  magis- 
trates, probably  many  of  the  informants  of  the  latter  themselves, 
and  the  public  in  general,  were  frightened  by  an  imagination  of 
what  had  no  existence.  The  drilling,  whatever  it  might  have 
led  to,  or  have  become  if  allowed  to  go  on,  had  not,  as  far  as  it 
had  yet  gone,  anything  of  the  character  ascribed  to  it.  It  was 
neither  a  clandestine  nor  an  armed  drilling.  Whether  or  no  it 
•was  a  thing  which  the  law  should  have  allowed,  is  ano'her  ques- 
tion. It  was  perhaps  liable  to  be  abused,  or  carried  out  to 
purposes  very  different  from  its  original  one.  Bamford  himself 
admits  that  it  had  its  seductions  and  dangers,  or  at  least  its 
liabilities  to  misconstruction,  both  by  lookers-on,  and,  in  some 
degree,  even  by  those  engaged  in  it  "  Some  extravagances," 
he  observes,  "  some  acts,  and  some  speeches,  better  let  alone,  cer- 
tainly did  take  place.  When  the  men  clapped  their  hands  in 
"  standing  at  ease,"  some  would  jokingly  say  it  was  "  firing," 
whilst  those  who  were  sent  to  observe  us  —  and  probably  we 
were,  seldom  unattended  by  such  —  and  who  knew  little  about 
military  motions,  would  take  the  joke  as  a  reality,  and  report 
accordingly ;  whence  probably  it  would  be  surmised  that  we  had 
arms,  and  that  our  drillings  were  only  preparatory  to  their  more 
effective  use." 

We  are  now  come  to  the  great  event  of  the  year,  and  the  most 
Manchester  memorable  incident  in  the  history  of  these  popular 
meeting.  movements.  The  election  of  Sir.  Charles  Wolseley  at 
Birmingham  appears  to  have  suggested  a  similar  proceeding  to 
the  reformers  of  Manchester.  Mr.  Hunt,  we  suppose,  must  have 
been  the  person  who  was  to  have  had  the  honor  of  being  elected 
legislatorial  attorney  for  that  town.  On  Saturday,  the  31st  of 
July,  an  advertisement  was  published  in  the  u  Manchester  Observ- 
er, "  inviting  the  inhabitants  to  meet  on  Monday,  the  9th  of  Au- 
gust, in  "  the  area  near  St.  Peter's  Church,"  for  the  purposes 
of  choosing  a  representative,  and  of  adopting  Major  Cartwright's 
plan  of  parliamentary  reform.  The  magistrates  immediately 


CHAP.  XVI.]       THE  MANCHESTER  MEETING.  247 

put  forth  placards,  declaring  the  intended  meeting  to  be  illegal, 
and  warning  the  people  to  abstain  from  attending  it  at  their  peril. 
Upon  this,  on  Wednesday,  the  4th  of  August,  the  parties  who 
had  called  the  meeting  announced  in  a  handbill  that  it  would 
not  take  place,  but  that  a  requisition  would  be  addressed  to  the 
borough  -  reeve  and  constables,  requesting  them  to  convene  a 
meeting  at  as  early  a  day  as  possible,  "  to  consider  the  propriety 
of  adopting  the  most  legal  and  effectual  means  of  adopting  reform 
in  the  Commons  House  of  Parliament."  This  requisition  was 
numerously  signed  in  the  course  of  the  day.  On  its  prayer 
being  refused  by  the  magistrates,  the  parties  who  had  originally 
moved  in  the  matter  gave  notice  that  the  meeting  would  take 
place  in  St.  Peter's  Field  on  Monday  the  16th.  It  was  intimated 
that  Mr.  Hunt  would  take  the  chair. 

All  was  now  busier  preparation  than  ever  in  every  town  and 
village  around  Manchester.  It  is  remarkable  that  the  great 
manufacturing  metropolis  itself  seems  to  have  remained  com- 
paratively unaroused,  and  not  to  have  contributed  anything  like 
its  due  proportion  of  numbers  to  the  mighty  reform  gathering. 
Indeed,  while  bodies  of  three,  four,  or  five  thousand  persons  are 
spoken  of  as  pouring  in  from  almost  every  one  of  the  two-and- 
thirty  points  of  the  compass,  and  every  separate  neighboring 
district  was  represented  on  the  ground  by  its  dense  and  extended 
array,  we  do  not  recollect  that  any  distinct  body  of  Manchester 
reformers  is  mentioned  at  all.  Some  of  the  accounts,  indeed, 
expressly  state  that  the  Manchester  working  people  generally 
took  little  part  in  the  demonstration,  and  that  such  of  them  as 
joined  the  crowd  seemed  to  have  come  for  the  most  part  only  as 
lookers-on. 

We  believe  that  Bamford's  animated  description  of  the  pro- 
cession of  his  fellow-townsmen,  the  reformers  of  Middleton,  who 
put  themselves  under  his  guidance,  conveys  a  fair  impression  of 
the  spirit  in  which  the  affair  was  entered  upon  by  the  generality 
of  those  engaged  in  it.  By  eight  o'clock  on  that  Monday  morn- 
ing, he  tells  us,1  the  whole  town  of  Middleton  was  on  the  alert. 
Those  who  did  not  intend  to  go  to  the  meeting  came  out  at  least 
to  see  the  procession.  The  marshalled  array  was  headed  by 
twelve  youths  in  two  rows,  each  holding  in  his  hand  a  branch  of 
laurel,  '•  as  a  token,"  says  Bamford,  "  of  amity  and  peace,"  and 
therefore,  we  must  suppose,  representing  the  olive  on  this  occa- 
sion. There  were  two  silk  flags,  the  one  blue,  the  other  green, 
with  "  Unity  and  Strength,"  "  Liberty  and  Fraternity,"  '•  Par- 
liaments Annual,"  and  ''  Suffrage  Universal."  inscribed  on  them 
in  letters  of  gold ;  and  a  cap  of  liberty,  of  crimson  velvet,  with 
a  tuft  of  laurel,  was  borne  aloft  between  them.  The  men 
1  Life  of  a  Radical,  ii.  pp.  197-204. 


248  HISTORY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [BOOK  L 

inarched  five  abreast,  every  hundred  having  a  leader  distin- 
guished by  a  sprig  of  laurel  in  his  hat ;  over  these  centurions  were 
superior  officers  similarly  decorated.  Baraford  himself,  as  con- 
ductor of  the  whole,  walked  at  the  head  of  the  column,  with  a 
bugleman  by  his  side  to  sound  his  orders.  Before  netting  out, 
the  entire  number,  of  not  less  than  three  thousand  men,  having 
formed  a  hollow  square,  while  probably  as  many  more  people 
stood  around  them,  and  silence  having  been  obtained,  Bamford 
shortly  addressed  them.  After  expressing  his  hope  that  their 
conduct  would  be  marked  by  a  steadiness  and  seriousness  befit- 
ting the  important  occasion,  he  requested  them  "  not  to  offer  any 
insult  or  provocation  by  word  or  deed,  not  to  notice  any  persons 
who  might  do  the  same  by  them,  but  to  keep  such  persons  as 
quiet  as  possible ;  for,  if  they  began  to  retaliate,  the  least  dis- 
turbance might  serve  as  a  pretext  for  dispersing  the  meeting." 
If  the  peace-officers,  he  added,  should  come  to  arrest  himself  or 
any  other  person,  they  were  not  to  offer  any  resistance,  but  to 
suffer  them  to  execute  their  office  peaceably.  He  also  told  them 
that,  in  conformity  with  a  rule  laid  down  by  the  committee,  no 
sticks  or  weapons  of  any  description  would  be  allowed  to  be 
carried  in  the  ranks ;  and  those  who  had  such  were  requested  to 
put  them  aside.  Many  sticks,  he  states,  were  in  consequence 
left  behind,  and  only  a  few  walking-staves  were  retained  by  the 
oldest  and  most  infirm.  There  is  reason,  however,  to  believe 
that  sticks  were  carried  to  the  meeting  in  greater  numbers  by 
some  of  the  other  parties.  "  I  may  say  with  truth,"  continues 
Bamford,  speaking  of  the  body  under  his  own  command,  "  that 
we  presented  a  most  respectable  assemblage  of  laboring  men ;  all 
were  decently  though  humbly  attired ;  and  I  noticed  not  even 
one  who  did  not  exhibit  a  white  Sunday's  shirt,  a  neck-cloth,  and 
other  apparel,  in  the  same  clean,  though  homely,  condition." 
After  their  leader's  speech,  which  was  received  with  cheers,  they 
resumed  their  marching  order,  and,  the  music  having  struck  up, 
set  out  at  a  slow  pace.  They  were  soon  joined  by  the  Rochdale 
people,  the  united  numbers  making  probably  six  thousand  men. 
A  hundred  or  two  of  women,  mostly  young  wives,  preceded  the 
column  ;  about  as  many  girls,  sweethearts  of  the  unmarried  lads, 
danced  to  the  music,  or  sung  snatches  of  popular  songs  ;  even 
some  children  went  forward  with  them,  although  a  score  or  two 
of  others  were  sent  back  ;  while  some  hundreds  of  stragglers 
walked  along-side.  As  they  proceeded  they  received  various  ac- 
cessions to  their  ranks.  At  Newton,  not  far  from  Manchester, 
Bamford  was  beckoned  to  by  a  gentleman  to  whom  he  was 
known,  one  of  the  partners  in  a  firm  in  whose  employment  the 
reform  leader  had  lately  been.  Faking  Bamfbrd's  hand,  he  said 
kindly,  though  in  a  tone  expressing  some  anxiety,  that  he  hoped 


CHAP.  XVI.]    FROM  MIDDLETON  TO   MANCHESTER.        249 

no  harm  was  intended  by  all  those  people  that  were  coming  in. 
Bamtbrd  replied  that  he  would  pledge  his  life  for  their  entire 
peaceableness.  "I  asked  him,"  he  continues,  "  to  notice  them; 
did  they  look  like  persons  wishing  to  outrage  the  law  ?  Were 
they  not,  on  the  contrary,  evidently  heads  of  decent  working 
families,  or  members  of  such  families  ?  'No,  no,'  I*said,  '  my 
dear  sir,  and  old  respected  master,  if  any  wrong  or  violence  take 
place,  they  will  be  committed  by  men  of  a  different  stamp  from 
these.'  He  said  he  was  very  glad  to  hear  me  say  so ;  he  was 
happy  he  had  seen  me,  and  gratified  by  the  manner  in  which  I 
had  expressed  myself.  I  asked,  did  he  think  we  should  he  in- 
terrupted at  the  meeting  ?  He  said  he  did  not  believe  we  should. 
'  Then,'  I  replied,  'all  will  be  well; '  and,  shaking  hands,  with 
mutual  good  wishes,  I  left  him,  and  took  my  station  as  before." 
After  they  had  entered  Manchester,  they  heard  that,  among  other 
parties  which  had  preceded  ihem.  the  Lees  and  Saddle  worth 
Union  had  been  led  by  Dr.  Henley,  walking  before  a  pitch- 
black  flag,  with  staring  while  letters,  forming  the  words,  "  Equal 
Representation  or  Death,"  "  Love  "  —  two  hands  joined,  and  a 
heart ;  all  in  white  paint,  and  presenting  one  of  the  most  sepul- 
chral-looking objects  that  could  be  contrived.  "  The  idea,''  ob- 
serves Bamford,  "  of  my  diminutive  friend  leading  a  funeral 
procession  of  hi-*  own  patients  —  such  it  appeared  to  me  —  was 
calculated  to  torce  a  smiie  even  at  that  thoughtful  moment.." 
They  seem  to  have  reached  the  place  of  meeting,  where  they 
found  an  immense  multitude  already  collected,  about  half  an 
hour  before  noon.  As  other  parties  successively  arrived,  they 
became  mo'e  and  more  enclosed,  till  they  finally  >tood  about  the 
centre  of  the  vast  mu'titude.  About  half  an  hour  a!ter  their 
arrival,  reiterated  shouts  proclaimed  the  near  approach  of  the 
great  man  ol  tlie  day ;  Hunt  came,  preceded  by  a  band  of  music, 
and  Hags  flying,  standing  up  in  an  open  barouche,  on  the  box  of 
which  sat  a  woman,  who,  it  afterwards  appeared,  had  made  no 
proper  or  original  part  of  the  show,  but  had  only  been  hoisted 
into  the  carriage  as  it  p:issed  through  the  crowd,  while  a  number 
of  his  male  friends  were  seated  around  him.  "  Their  approach," 
says  Bamford,  *'  was  hailed  by  one  universal  shout  from  probably 
eighty  thousand  persons.  They  threaded  their  way  slowly  past 
us,  and  through  the  crowd,  which  Hunt  eyed,  I  thought,  with 
almost  as  much  of  astou  shment  as  satisfaction."  The  hustings, 
erected  upon  two  wagons,  stood  close  to  the  place  where  Bamford 
and  his  party  were  posted. 

The  arrangements  made  by  the  authorities  for  the  part  they 
were  to  act,  on  the  other  hand,  are  to  be  found  authentically 
detailed  in  the  communications  addressed  by  themselves  at  the 
time  to  the  government,  which  were  afterwards  laid  before  par- 


250  HISTORY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [Boon  I. 

liament,  in  the  evidence  given  on  the  subsequent  trial  of  Hunt 
and  his  associates  at  York,  and  most  distinctly  in  a  valuable  and 
interesting  narrative  of  the  events  of  the  day,  furnished  to  the 
biographer  of  Lord  Sidmouth  by  Sir  William  J.  H.  Jolliffe, 
Bart.,  M.  P.,  who,  as  a  lieutenant  of  the  lath  hussars,  was  him- 
self an  actor  in  the  scene  he  has  described.  A  numerous  com- 
mittee of  magistrates  of  the  county  had  been  constantly  sitting 
since  Saturday  morning,  taking  depositions,  and  considering  what 
they  should  do.  It  seems  to  have  been  upon  considerable  hesita- 
tion that  they  resolved  not  to  attempt  to  prevent  the  meeting, 
but  to  defer  the  execution  of  a  warrant  which  was  issued  for  the 
arrest  of  the  leaders,  till  the  people  had  all  assembled  and  the 
proceedings  had  commenced.  The  reasons  for  the  adoption  of 
this  course  are  not  explained;  it  is  only  stated  that  the  commit- 
tee "  contented  themselves.1  till  they  saw  what  the  complexion  of 
the  meeting  might  be,  or  what  circumstances  might  arise,  with 
coming  to  this  determination  only,  which  they  adopted  in  concur- 
rence with  some  of  the  most  intelligent  gentlemen  of  the  town." 
About  two  hundred  special  constables  had  been  sworn  in  ;  and 
the  military  force  which  they  had  at  their  command  consisted  of 
six  troops  of  the  loth  hussars,  which  had  been  quartered  in  the 
cavalry  barracks  near  the  town  tor  about  six  weeks ;  a  troop  of 
hor.-e-ariillery,  with  two  guns  ;  nearly  the  whole  of  the  31st 
regiment  of  infantry  ;  some  companies  of  the  88th  regiment ;  the 
Cheshire  Yeomanry,  comprising  between  three  and  four  hundred 
men,  who  only  arrived  on  the  morning  of  the  16th  ;  and,  lastly,  a 
troop  of  Manchester  Yeomanry,  numbering  about  forty  members, 
chiefly  wealthy  master-manufacturers.  The  special  con-tables 
and  the  Manchester  Yeomanry  the  magistrates  retained  under 
their  own  immediate  orders ;  the  command  of  the  rest  of  the 
force  was  taken  by  Colonel  Guy  L'Estrange,  of  the  31st  regi- 
ment, as  the  senior  officer,  in  the  absence  of  Sir  John  Byng 
(now  Earl  of  Strafftml),  the  general  of  the  district,  who  was  at 
his  head-quarters  at  Pontefract,  and  to  whom  it  would  appear, 
among  all  the  preparations  that  were  made,  no  intimation  had 
been  sent  of  what  was  intended  to  be  done,  or  of  the  strong  view 
that  was  taken  of  the  seriousness  of  the  emergency.  Of  course, 
however,  the  military  could  only  act  on  being  authorized  or 
called  upon  by  the  civil  power.  Early  in  the  forenoon  of  the 
1 6th,  the  constables  were  posted,  one  portion  of  them  close  to 
the  hustings  in  the  centre  of  St.  Peter's  Field,  the  rest  so  as  to 
maintain  a  communication  from  thence  to  a  private  house  on  the 
south  side  of  that  irregular  square  space  of  ground,  to  which  the 
magistrates  repaired  about  eleven  o'clock  from  the  Star  Inn, 

1  Letter  from  Mr.  Hay,  one  of  the  magistrates,  to  Lord  Sidmouth,  15th  Au- 
gust. 


CHAP.  XVI.]     CIVIL  AND  MILITAEY  PREPARATIONS.      251 

where  they  had  first  assembled.  The  distance  from  this  house 
to  the  hustings  was  stated  on  the  trial  at  York  to  have  been 
about  three  or  four  hundred  yards,  but  it  was  probably  not  quite 
so  much ;  the  entire  extent  of  St.  Peter's  Field,  now  all  built 
over,  was  only  between  two  and  three  acres.  The  military  force 
was  disposed  as  follows.  Two  squadrons  of  the  loth  hussars, 
having  been  marched  into  town  about  ten  o'clock,  were  dismounted 
in  a  wide  street  to  the  north  of  St.  Peter's  Field,  and  at  the  dis- 
tance of  nearly  a  quarter  of  a  mile  from  it ;  the  Cheshire  Yeo- 
manry were  formed  on  their  left  in  the  same  street;  of  the 
remaining  troops  of  the  hussars,  one  was  attached  to  the  artillery, 
which  took  up  a  position  between  the  cavalry  barracks  and  the 
town,  and  the  other  remained  in  charge  of  the  barracks.  The 
Manchester  Yeomanry  were  stationed  in  a  street  to  the  east  of 
the  field.  The  infantry  were  kept  in  readiness,  but  were  not 
called  upon  to  act  till  after  the  meeting  had  been  dispersed. 
The  whole  work,  as  will  presently  appear,  was  done  by  the  forty 
Manchester  Yeomanry,  and  the  two  squadrons  —  four  troops, 
or  three  hundred  and  twenty  men  —  of  the  15th  hussars. 

The  band  which  accompanied  Hunt  and  his  party  on  their  ap- 
proach played  the  national  airs  of  "  Rule  Britannia"  and  "  God 
save  the  King,"  during  which,  it  is  said,  the  people  generally,  or 
many  of  them  at  least,  held  their  hats  off.  No  time  was  then  lost 
in  proceeding  to  the  business  of  the  day.  As  soon  as  Hunt  and  his 
friends  had  mounted  the  hustings,  the  music  ceased,  upon  which 
it  was  formally  proposed  that  Mr.  Hunt  should  take  the  chair ; 
the  motion,  being  seconded,  was  carried  by  acclamation,  and  the 
orator,  advancing  to  the  front  of  the  stage,  took  off  his  white  hat, 
and  addressed  the  now  silent  and  listening  multitude.  He  had 
only,  however,  uttered  a  few  sentences,  when  a  confused  murmur 
and  pressure,  beginning  at  one  verge  of  the  field,  and  rapidly 
rolling  onwards,  brought  him  to  a  pause.  The  soldiers  were  upon 
the  people. 

The  account  given  by  Mr.  Hulton,  the  chairman  of  the  bench 
of  magistrates,  when  he  was  afterwards  examined  on  the  trial  at 
York,  was  that,  when,  after  the  meeting  had  assembled,  the  war- 
rant for  the  apprehension  of  the  reform  leaders  was  given  to 
Nadin,  the  chief  constable,  that  person  declared  that  he  could  not 
execute  it  without  military  aid  ;  upon  which  two  letters  were 
despatched,  one  to  the  commander  of  the  Manchester  Yeomanry, 
the  other  to  Colonel  L'Estrange,  requiring  them  to  come  to  the 
house  where  the  magistrates  were.  The  yeomanry,  being  near- 
est at  hand,  made  their  appearance  first.  They  came  from 
Mosley  Street.  These  must  have  been  the  troops  that  were 
seen  by  Bamford  as  he  was  retiring  from  the  ground  with  a 
friend  to  get  some  refreshment.  "  J  stood  on  tiptoe,"  he  says, 


252  HISTORY  OF   THE   PEACE.  [Boon  I. 

"  and  looked  to  the  direction  whence  the  noise  proceeded,  and  saw 
a  party  of  cavalry  in  blue  and  white  uniform  come  trotting 
sword  in  hand  round  the  corner  of  a  garden-wall,  and  to  the 
front  of  a  row  of  new  houses,  where  they  reined  up  in  a  line." 
This  was  in  front  of  the  house  where  the  magistrates  were.  Mr. 
Hulton  says  that  the  troop  came  up  at  a  quick  pace,  and  that,  the 
moment  they  appeared,  the  crowd  set  up  a  tremendous  shout. 
The  shout,  as  Bamford  understood  it,  was  one  of  good-will.  It 
appears  that,  when  Hunt  first  saw  the  confusion,  he  exclaimed 
that  it  was  some  trick,  meaning,  perhaps,  an  attempt  to  frighten 
the  meeting,  and  called  to  the  people  to  be  firm,  and  to  give 
three  cheers,  which  was  done.  All  parties  agree  that  after  the 
people  had  shouted,  the  yeomanry,  who  had  now  halted  about 
three  minutes,  waved  their  swords  and  advanced.  There  are 
contradictory  accounts  of  the  pace  at  which  they  endeavored  to 
move  forward;  in  point  of  fact,  they  appear  to  have  penetrated 
the  dense  crowd,  not  in  a  body  at  all,  or  in  any  kind  of  marching 
order,  but  singly  and  separately.  Of  course  they  were  soon 
brought  to  a  stand.  This  was  the  state  in  which  things  were 
when  the  two  squadrons  of  hussars  came  up,  having  made  their 
way  round  by  the  west  side  of  the  field.  "It  was  then,"  says 
Sir  W.  Jiillitfe,  "  for  the  first  time  that  I  saw  the  Manchester 
troop  of  Yeomanry  ;  they  were  scattered  singly,  or  in  small 
groups,  over  the  greater  part  of  the  field,  literally  hemmed  up, 
and  wedged  into  the  mob,  so  that  they  were  powerless  either  to 
make  an  impression  or  to  escape  ;  in  fact,  they  were  in  the  power 
of  those  whom  they  were  designed  to  overawe  ;  and  it  required 
only  a  glance  to  discover  their  helpless  position,  and  the  necessity 
of  our  being  brought  to  their  rescue."  Here,  then,  was  the  sec- 
ond device  of  the  magistrates  for  the  execution  of  the  warrant 
utterly  baffled  ;  their  first  notion  was  to  intrust  it  to  Ts'adin,  the 
constable,  who  told  them  that  to  execute  it  with  the  force  at  his 
command  was  impossible ;  and  now  the  troop  of  armed  yeomen, 
which  was  next  tried,  and  which  had  actually  made  the  attempt, 
was  stuck  fast,  and  could  neither  advance  nor  retreat.  Mr.  Hul- 
ton's  own  account  is  that,  at  the  moment  when  the  hussars  ar- 
rived, he  conceived  the  Manchester  Yeomanry  to  be  completely 
beaten.  When  Colonel  L'Estrange,  he  says,  asked  him  what  he 
was  to  do,  he  exclaimed :  'k  Good  God,  sir,  do  you  not  see  how 
they  are  attacking  the  yeomanry  ?  Disperse  the  crowd."  On 
this  the  word  "  Forward"  was  instantly  given,  the  trumpet 
sounded,  and  the  cavalry  dashed  among  the  multitude.  Their 
charge  swept  everything  before  it.  "•  People,  yeomen,  and  con- 
stables," say.>  Sir  W.  Jolliffe,  "  in  their  confused  attempts  to  es- 
cape, ran  one  over  the  other  ;  so  that,  by  the  time  we  had  arrived 
at  the  end  of  the  field,  the  fugitives  were  literally  piled  up  to  a 


CHAP.  XVI.]     THE  MEETING  DISPERSED  BY  TROOPS.    253 

considerable  elevation  above  the  level  of  the  ground."  As  soon  as 
lie  had  given  his  orders  to  Colonel  L'Estrange,  Mr.  Hulton  tells 
us  lie  left  the  window,. because  he  "would  rather  not  see  any 
advance  of  the  military."  The  hussars  generally,  Sir  W.  JollitFe 
states,  drove  the  people  forward  with  the  flats  of  their  swords  ; 
"  but  sometimes,"  he  adds,  "  as  is  almost  inevitably  the  case 
when  men  are  placed  in  such  situations,  the  edge  was  used,  both 
by  the  hussars,  and,  as  I  have  heard,  by  the  yeomen  also ;  but 
of  this  latter  fact,  however,  I  was  not  cognizant ;  and.  believing 
though  I  do  that  nine  out  of  ten  of  the  sabre  -  wounds  were 
caused  by  the  hussars,  I  must  still  consider  that  it  redounds 
highly  to  the  humane  forbearance  of  the  men  of  the  loth,  that 
more  wounds  were  not  received,  when  the  vast  numbers  are 
taken  into  consideration  with  whom  they  were  brought  into  hos- 
tile collision."  There  can  be  no  doubt,  however,  as  he  observes, 
that  '"  the  far  greater  amount  of  injuries  arose  from  the  pressure 
of  the  routed  multitude."  The  scene  during  the  few  minutes 
that  it  took  to  effect  the  dispersion  must  have  been  terrific  in  the 
extreme.  Bamford,  who  does  not  distinguish  between  the  ad- 
vance of  the  yeomanry  and  that  of  the  hussars,  and  whose  situa- 
tion did  not  allow  him  to  do  so,  has  described  it  with  perhaps  a 
little  rhetorical  license  in  some  particulars,  but  with  probably 
little  exaggeration  of  the  general  effect.  '  Stand  fast,'  he  called 
out  to  (hose  around  him,  when  he  saw  the  troops  darting  forward  ; 
"they  are  riding  upon  us;  stand  fast."  "And  there  was  a  gen- 
eral cry,"  he  says,  "  in  our  quarter,  of  '  Stand  fast.'  The  cavalry 
were  in  confusion ;  they  evidently  could  not,  with  all  the  weight 
of  man  and  horse,  penetrate  that  compact  mass  of  human  beings; 
and  their  sabres  were  plied  to  hew  a  way  through  naked  held-up 
hands  and  defence  less  heads  ;  and  then  chopped  limbs  and  wound- 
gaping  skulls  were  seen ;  and  groans  and  cries  were  mingled 
with  the  dn  of  that  horrid  confusion.  'Ah!  ah!'  'For 
shame  !  for  shame ! '  was  shouted.  Then  '  Break  !  break  ! 
They  are  killing  them  in  front,  and  they  cannot  get  away;'  and 
there  was  a  general  cry  of  '  Break !  break ! '  For  a  moment 
the  crowd  held  back  as  in  a  pause  ;  then  was  a  rush,  heavy  and 
resistless  as  a  headlong  sea,  and  a  sound  like  low  thunder,  with 
screams,  prayers,  and  imprecations  from  the  crowd,  moiled  and 

sabre-doomed,  who  could  not  escape In  ten  minutes  from 

the  commencement  of  the  havoc,  the  field  was  an  open  and  al- 
most deserted  space.  The  sun  looked  down  through  a  sultry 

and  motionless  air The  hustings  remained,  with  a  few 

broken  and  hewed  flag-staves  erect,  and  a  torn  and  gashed  banner 
or  two  dropping  ;  whilst  over  the  whole  field  were  strewed  caps, 
bonnets,  hats,  shawls,  and  shoes,  and  other  parts  of  male  and 
female  dress,  trampled,  torn,  and  bloody Several  mounda 


254  HISTORY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [BOOK  I. 

of  human  beings  still  remained  where  they  had  fallen,  crushed 
down  and  smothered.  Some  of  these  still  groaning,  others  with 
staring  eyes,  were  gasping  for  breath ;  and  others  would  never 
breathe  more.  All  was  silent,  save  those  low  sounds,  and  the 
occasional  snorting  and  pawing  of  steeds.  Persons  might  some- 
times be  noticed  peeping  from  attics  and  over  the  tall  ridgings  of 
houses,  but  they  quickly  withdrew,  as  if  fearful  of  being  ob- 
served, or  unable  to  sustain  the  full  gaze  of  a  scene  so  hideous 
and  abhorrent."  About  thirty  wounded  persons  were  carried  to 
the  infirmary  in  the  course  of  that  afternoon  and  the  following 
daj  ;  and  about  forty  more  were  able  to  come  themselves  to  have 
slighter  injuries  looked  at  and  dressed.  There  were,  no  doubt, 
some  cases  besides  that  were  not  heard  of.  The  greater  number 
of  the  injuries  were  contusions  or  fractures;  the  cases  of  sabre- 
wounds  do  not  appear  to  have  been  more  than  twenty  or  thirty. 
Three  or  four  persons  were  wounded  on  the  evening  of  the  fatal 
day  by  the  fire  of  one  of  the  regiments  of  foot,  which  was  or- 
dered to  clear  the  streets,  where  the  people  had  reassembled  in 
great  numbers,  and  their  conduct  had  begun  to  be  threatening. 
Altogether  the  number  of  lives  lost  appears  to  have  been  five  or 
six,  including  one  of  the  special  constables,  ridden  over  by  the 
hussars,  and  one  of  the  Manchester  yeomen,  struck  off  his  horse 
by  a  brickbat,  and  who  had  his  skull  fractured  either  by  the 
blow  or  the  fall. 

Hunt  and  some  eight  or  ten  of  his  friends  were  seized  by  the 
first  of  the  military  who  came  up  to  the  hustings ;  and,  being 
brought  up  before  the  magistrates  on  the  Friday  following,  were 
then  remanded  on  a  charge  of  high  treason.  On  that  day  week, 
however,  by  which  time  Bamford  and  one  or  two  others  who  had 
made  their  escape  on  the  day  of  the  meeting  had  been  appre- 
hended, having  been  brought  up  again,  they  were  informed  that 
government  had  for  the  present  abandoned  that  charge,  and  that 
they  would  be  only  detained  till  they  should  find  bail,  to  be  tried 
for  the  misdemeanor  of  having  conspired  to  alter  the  law  by 
force  and  threats. 


CHAP.  XVII.]     CONDUCT   OF  THE  MAGISTRATES.  255 


CHAPTER    XVII. 

THE  Manchester  Massacre,  as  it  came  very  generally  to  be 
designated,  was  at  once  felt  on  all  hands  to  have  made  conductor  the 
an  epoch  in  the  history  of  the  contest  with  Radicalism.  Manchester 
A  new  scene  of  that  drama  had  commenced.  Other  magistr 
feelings  were  called  up,  and  a  change  was  to  come  over  the  course 
of  action,  on  both  sides.  The  Manchester  magistrates  themselves 
were  probably  as  much  astonished  as  anybody  at  what  they  had 
done.  Many  other  Radical  meetings  had  been  held  in  all  parts 
of  the  country,  but  nothing  had  happened  at  any  of  them  like 
what  had  taken  place  here.  The  dispersion  of  a  popular  meet- 
ing by  armed  force,  on  the  ground  solely  of  its  being  formidable 
from  its  numbers,  might  be  a  legal  proceeding,  but  similar  cir- 
cumstances had  again  and  again  occurred  of  late  without  its  hav- 
ing been  adopted.  Why  should  not  this  meeting  have  been  al- 
lowed to  be  held  without  being  so  interfered  with,  as  well  as  any 
of  those  that  had  preceded  it  ?  Could  not  the  public  safety  have 
been  as  effectually  preserved  now  as  on  so  many  former  occa- 
sions, merely  by  the  necessary  preparations  being  made  for  re- 
pressing any  outbreak  on  the  part  of  the  people,  if  such  should 
be  attempted  ?  Or,  if  the  arrest  of  Hunt  and  his  associates  was 
necessary  or  expedient,  could  that  object  not  have  been  effected 
in  another  way  ?  If  it  would  have  been  too  hazardous  for  Nadin, 
the  peace-officer,  to  have  attempted  to  apprehend  them  during  the 
meeting,  as  Harrison  had  been  apprehended  a  few  weeks  before 
without  difficulty  at  Smithfield,  might  they  not  have  been  easily 
seized  at  any  time  either  before  the  meeting  or  after  it  ?  These 
and  other  such  questions  could  not  fail  to  suggest  themselves. 
But,  above  all,  they  must  have  been  conscious  —  for  it  is  unde- 
niable, and  is,  indeed,  as  good  as  confessed  —  that,  after  all  their 
two  days'  deliberation,  they  had  allowed  the  morning  of  the  day 
of  meeting  to  come  upon  them  without  being  prepared  with  any 
determined  plan  of  action.  Their  notion  of  being  guided  by 
circumstances  wns  manifestly  nothing  more  than  a  vague  hope 
that  something  might  happen  to  deliver  them  in  some  way  or 
other  from  their  indecision  and  perplexity,  and  compel  them,  as 
it  were,  to  take  some  particular  course.  Accordingly,  we  see 


256  HISTORY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [BOOK  L 

them  standing  aloof  and  doing  nothing  as  long  as  they  can. 
They  neither  attempt  to  prevent  ihe  meeting  taking  place,  nor 
tf  arres'  the  popular  leaders  on  their  way  to  it.  Then,  one  fa- 
•vorable  opportunity  having  thus  been  let  slip  after  another,  they 
clutch  as  if  in  desperation  at  what  seems  their  last  chance  of 
doing  anything.  It  is  determined  that  the  forty  Manchester  yeo- 
men shall  attempt  to  walk  their  horses  up  to  the  hustings  through 
thf  densely  packed  arid  all  but  impenetrable  multitude,  whose 
dosing  around  each,  and  separating  him  from  his  comrades,  as 
boon  as  he  had  moved  a  few  yards  forward,  was  inevitable.  This 
was  not  to  be  guided  by  circumstances,  but  to  be  driven  on  by 
the  impulse  of  trepidation  or  passion.  All  that  followed  was  the 
result  of  the  failure  of  this  attempt,  which  could  not  but  fail. 
It  is  clear  that  the  order  to  the  hussars  to  clear  the  ground  was 
the  thought  of  the  instant.  Up  to  that  moment  no  such  proceed- 
ing had  been  contemplated  or  dreamt  of.  The  people  were  not 
allowed  to  assemble  in  order  that  they  might  be  swept  off  the 
ground  by  a  charge  of  cavalry.  The  dispersion  and  blooilshcd 
were  not  premeditated ;  they  were  the  convulsive  effort  of  the 
authorities  to  extricate  themselves  from  a  danger,  real  or  imagi- 
nnry,  into  which  a  previous  false  step  h;id  precipitated  them. 
Perhaps  a  sounder  judgment  might  have  seen  that  the  yeomanrv, 
after  they  had  entered  the  crowd,  were  not  in  so  much  peril  as 
they  appeared  to  be  in  to  Mr.  Hulton  ;  but,  however  this  may  have 
been,  the  grand  mistake  had  been  committed  in  placing  them  in 
that  position.  That  this  was  a  blunder  was  demonstrated  by 
what  immediately  ensued  —  was  acknowledged  by  the  magis- 
trates themselves  in  the  very  next  order  they  issued.  Nor  was 
the  failure  one  the  blame  of  which  was  to  be  laid  upon  circum- 
stances having  turned  out  otherwise  than  might  have  been  ex- 
pected ;  the  experiment  was  much  the  same  as  if  the  forty  yeo- 
men had  been  ordered  to  advance  through  the  water  upon  a  ves- 
sel lying  a  quarter  of  a  mile  out  at  sea.  It  was  an  experiment 
which  could  not  succeed  in  any  circumstances. 

On  the  other  hand,  however  wanting  in  discretion  they  may 
Conduct  have  shown  themselves,  however  grievous  an  error  in 
of  the  gov-  judgment  they  may  have  committed,  it  does  not  appear 
ent'  that  the  Manchester  magistrates  can  be  made  out  to 
have  done  anything  absolutely  illegal  on  this  occasion.  They 
were  of  course  justified,  on  the  sworn  informations  they  had  re- 
ceived, in  issuing  their  warrant  for  the  arrest  of  Hunt  and  his 
associates  :  the  warrant  could  be  legally  executed  at  the  time 
when  the  attempt  to  execute  it  was  made ;  and  any  resistance,  or 
supposed  resistance,  to  the  officer  intrusted  with  it,  might  be 
legally  put  down  by  any  available  force  which  appeared  to  be 
necessary  for  that  purpose.  This  was,  no  doubt,  the  view  of  the 


CHAP.  XVII.]     COURSE   OF   THE   GOVERNMENT.  257 

case  which  determined  the  government,  under  the  advice  of  the 
law-officers,  to  notify  immediately  their  sanction  of  what  had 
been  done.  The  statement  which  Lord  Sidmouth  afterwards 
made  in  parliament 1  was,  that  the  account  of  what  had  taken 
place  at  Manchester  reached  ministers  on  Tuesday  night ;  that  on 
Wednesday  one  of  the  magistrates,  accompanied  by  another  gen 
tleman,  arrived  in  town  to  give  the  government  the  fullest  infor- 
mation on  all  the  circumstances ;  that  a  cabinet  council  was  im- 
mediately summoned,  at  which  the  Attorney  and  Solicitor  General 
were  present;  that  the  two  gentlemen  from  Manchester  gave 
minute  details  of  everything;  and  that  the  law-officers  then  gave 
it  as  their  opinion  that  the  conduct  of  the  magistrates  was  com- 
pletely justified  by  the  neces-ity  under  which  they  acted.  It  ap- 
pears that  the  first  thing  the  Home  Secretary  did  upon  this  was  to 
write  to  the  Prince  Regent.  The  reply  of  his  royal  highness  was 
despatched  by  Sir  Benjamin  Bloomfield  on  the  19th,  from  the 
Royal  George  yacht,  off  Christchurch.  It  conveyed  the  Regent's 
"approbation  and  high  commendation  of  the  conduct  of  the  mag- 
istrates and  civil  authorities  at  Manchester,  as  well  as  of  the  offi- 
cers and  troops,  both  regular  and  yeomanry  cavalry,  whose  firm- 
ness and  effectual  support  of  the  civil  power  preserved  the  peace 
of  the  town  on  that  most  critical  occasion."  Lord  Sidmouth 
then,  on  the  2 1  st,2  addressed  letters  to  the  Earls  of  Derby  and 
Stamford,  the  lords  lieutenants  of  Lancashire  and  Cheshire,  inti- 
mating that  he  had  been  commanded  by  the  Prince  Regent  to 
request  that  their  lordships  would  express  to  the  magistrates  of 
the  two  counties  who  were  present  at  Manchester  on  the  16th, 
"  the  great  satisfaction  derived  by  his  royal  highness  from  their 
prompt,  decisive,  and  efficient  measures  for  the  preservation  of 
the  public  tranquillity."  Lord  Sidmouth's  defence  of  the  course 
he  thus  took  is  stated  as  follows  by  his  biographer:8  "  Lord  Sid- 
mouth was  aware  that  this  proceeding  would  subject  him  to  the 
charge  of  precipitation  ;  but  he  was  acting  upon  what  he  consid- 
ered an  essential  principle  of  government  —  namely,  to  acquire 
the  confidence  of  the  magistracy,  especially  in  critical  times,  by 
showing  a  readiness  to  support  them  in  all  honest,  reasonable, 
and  well-intended  acts,  without  inquiring  too  minutely  whether 
they  might  have  performed  their  duty  a  little  better  or  a  little 
worse.  So  impressed  was  his  lordship  with  the  importance  of 
this  principle,  that  he  constantly  declared  in  after-life,  that,  had 
the  question  recurred,  he  should  again  have  pursued  a  course  the 
policy  of  which  was  not  less  obvious  than  its  justice.  If,  indeed, 
the  government  had  left  those  magistrates  exposed  to  the  storm 
of  popular  indignation,  until  the  verdict  against  Hunt  and  his  as- 

1  Debate  of  23d  Nov.  1819;  Hansard,  xli.  p.  24. 

2  Life  of  Lord  Sidmouth,  iii.  p.  262.  8  Ibid. 

VOL.   II.  17 


258  HISTORY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [BOOK  I. 

sociates  in  the  succeeding  year  had  demonstrated  the  legality  of 
their  conduct,1  the  magistracy  at  large  must,  from  tlie  dread  of 
abandonment,  have  failed  in  duty  towards  that  royal  authority, 
which  either  could  not,  or  would  not  stand  by  them  in  the  hour 
of  peril ;  and  thus,  in  all  probability,  the  most  calamitous  conse- 
quences would  have  ensued."  It  would  appear,  however,  that, 
although  the  Home  Secretary  had  the  concurrence  of  his  col- 
leagues in  the  step  which  he  took,  they  were  not  unanimous  in 
adopting  the  view  upon  which  he  acted.  Mr.  T  \viss  has  pub- 
lished a  remarkable  letter  of  Lord  Eldon's  to  his  brother,  Sir 
William  Scott,  without  date,  but  evidently  written  about  this 
time,  in  which  his  lordship  says  :  2  "  Without  all  doubt  the  Man- 
chester magistrates  must  be  supported ;  but  they  are  very  gen- 
erally blamed  here.  For  my  part,  1  think  if  the  assembly  was 
only  an  unlawful  assembly,  that  task  will  be  difficult  enough  in 
sound  reasoning.  If  the  meeting  was  an  overt  act  of  treason, 
their  justification  is  complete."  Eldon,  who  goes  on  to  s:ty  that 
he  was  clearly  of  opinion  that  the  meeting  was  an  overt  act 
of  treason,  and  that  the  previous  Birmingham  meeting  was  the 
same  —  his  argument  being,  as  he  afterwards  stated  it  in  the 
House  of  Lords,  "  that  numbers  constituted  force,  and  force  ter- 
ror, and  terror  illegality " —  pressed  for  having  the  prisoners 
indicted  for  treason,  but  was,  as  we  have  seen,  overruled.  It 
was,  it  seems,  on  the  25th  that  Lord  Sidmouth  informed  the 
Regent  that  the  evidence  against  Hunt  and  his  associate-;  "  did 
not  atford  sufficient  ground  3  for  proceeding  against  them  for  high 
treason  ;  but  that  it  fully  warranted  a  prosecution  for  a  treasona- 
ble conspiracy,  which  would  be  instituted  immediately,  in  order 
that  the  bill  of  indictment  might  be  presented  to  the  grand  jury 
at  the  ensuing  summer  assizes  for  the  county  of  Lancaster." 
This  was  done  accordingly,  and  true  bills  were  found  against 
Hunt  and  nine  others. 

Meanwhile  the  utmost  excitement  had  been  produced  by  the 
General       proceedings  at  Manchester  all  over  the  country.     On 
excitement.  jne  22d,  immediately  on  reading  the  newspaper  ac- 
count, Sir  Francis  Burdett  addressed  a  public  letter  to  the  elec- 
tors of  Westminster,  denouncing  the  conduct  of  the  magistrates 
in  the  most  unmeasured  terms.     For  this  the  Attorney-General 
immediately  proceeded  against  him  by  an  ex  officio  information  for 
libel.     Meetings,  at  which  strong  resolutions    against   both  the 
magistrates  and  the  government  were  passed,  were   held  in  all 
parts  of  the  kingdom.     An  address  in  this  spirit,  presented   to 

1  The  legality  of  the  conduct  of  the  -whatever  in  the  verdict  on  that  occa- 

Manchester  magistrates  was  not  one  sion. 

of  the  questions  at  issue  on    Hunt's  2  Life  of  Lord  Eldon,  ii.  p.  338. 

trial,  nor  of  course  was  it  either  de-  8  Ljfe  of  Lord  Sidmouth,  iii.  p.  263. 
monstrated  or   noticed   in   any   way 


CHAP.  XVII.]  GENEEAL  EXCITEMENT.  259 

the  Regent  in  the  beginning  of  September,  from  the  common 
council  of  the  city  of  London,  drew  from  his  royal  highness  a 
reply,  in  which  he  told  its  authors  that  he  received  their  address 
with  deep  regret,  and  that  they  appeared  to  know  little  or  noth- 
ing either  of  the  circumstances  which  preceded  the  late  meeting 
at  Manchester  or  of  those  which  attended  it.  This,  however,  did 
not  prevent  addresses  to  the  same  effect,  some  more,  some  less 
strongly  expressed,  being  sent  in  from  Westminster,  Norwich, 
York,  Bristol,  Liverpool,  Nottingham,  and  many  other  towns. 
Of  the  county  meetings  the  most  remarkable  was  that  of  the 
county  of  York,  which  was  hell  on  the  14th  of  October,  and  at 
which  20,000  persons  were  supposed  to  have  been  present. 
Among  those  who  signed  the  requisition  to  the  high  sheriff  was 
Earl  Fitzwilliam,  and  his  lordship  was  also  present  at  the  meet- 
ing ;  for  which  acts,  as  they  were  considereil,  of  open  opposition 
to  the  government,  he  was  immediately  dismissed  from  his  office 
of  lord  lieutenant  of  the  West  Riding.  Before  this  the  Duke  of 
Hamilton,  lord  lieutenant  of  the  county  of  Lanark,  had  sent  a 
subscription  of  501.  to  the  committee  for  the  relief  of  the  Man- 
chest'-r  suff  Ters,  accompanied  by  a  letter,  in  wh  ch  he  expressed 
the  alarm  that  had  been  excited  in  his  mind  by  the  manner  in 
which  the  meeting  of  the  16th  of  August  had  been  interrupted. 
There  were  not,  however,  wanting  some  addresses  and  declara- 
tions on  the  other  side  from  the  smaller  towns  and  counties ;  and 
a  few  associations  for  raising  troops  of  yeomanry  in  aid  of  the 
civil  powers  were  formed  in  Scotland  and  in  the  north  of  Eng- 
land. The  grand  jury  of  the  county  of  Lancaster  also  threw 
out  a  number  of  bills  presented  to  them  against  individuals  be- 
longing to  the  Manchester  Yeomanry,  for  cutting  and  maiming 
with  intent  to  kill  in  St.  Peter's  Field  ;  and  the  proceedings  of 
an  inquest  which  sat  for  nine  days  at  Oldham,  on  the  body  of  one 
of  the  persons  killed  at  the  meeting,  after  having  been  character- 
ized by  every  species  of  irregularity  and  confusion,  were  at  last 
quashed  by  the  Court  of  King's  Bench.  On  the  whole,  the  dis- 
position of  the  classes  possessed  of  property  still  -was  generally 
to  rally  round  and  support  the  government,  even  although  the 
more  reflecting  among  them  might  not  see  reason  to  approve  of 
everything  that  had  been  done  in  the  contest  with  the  democrati- 
cal  party.  The  opinion  of  one  class  of  the  ministerial  adherents 
may  be  considered  to  be  expressed  in  a  passage  of  one  of  Mr. 
Ward's  letters,  written  from  Paris  in  the  beginning  of  October :  * 
"  What  do  reasonable  people  think  of  the  Manchester  business  ? 
I  am  inclined  to  suspect  that  the  magistrates  were  in  too  great  a 
hurry,  and  that  their  loyal  zeal,  and  the  nova  gloria  in  armis, 
tempted  the  yeomanry  to  too  liberal  a  use  of  the  sabre ;  in  short, 
1  Letters  of  the  Earl  of  Dudley,  p.  230. 


260  HISTORY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [Boos  L 

that  their  conduct  has  given  some  color  of  reason  to  the  corn- 
plaints  and  anirer  of  the  Jacobins.  The  approbation  of  govern- 
ment was  probably  given  as  the  supposed  price  of  support  from 
the  Tories  in  that  part  of  the  country." 

But  in  that  portion  of  the  population  where  sympathy  with 
Temper  of  the  radical  reform  agitation  was  naturally  the  most 
the  people,  strongly  felt  and  the  most  widely  diffused,  the  only 
feeling  produced  by  the  attack  on  the  Manchester  meeting  ap- 
pears to  have  been  one  of  the  keenest  exasperation  and  thirst 
for  revenge.  There  was  no  diminution  of  the  audacity  which  bad 
hitherto  characterized  the  reform  movement.  Large  meetings 
of  the  working  classes  were  held  in  rapid  succession  in  all  the 
manufacturing  districts,  at  which  the  most  inflammatory  speeches 
were  delivered,  and  the  most  daring  reso'utions  passed.  It  was 
evident  that  a  more  resolute  and  dangerous  spirit  than  ever  had 
been  awakened  in  the  popular  mind.  Yet  it  is  worthy  of  remark 
that  no  at  empt  was  anywhere  made  by  the  authorities  to  repeat 
the  course  which  had  been  taken  by  the  Manche  ter  magistrares, 
unless  we  are  to  except  an  uncalled-for  interference  with  a  meeting 
hell,  about  the  middle  of  September,  at  Paisley,  which  produced  a 
state  of  disturbance  and  riot  that  lasted  for  three  days,  and,  haVing 
extended  to  Glasgow,  was  not  put  down  without  the  military  hav- 
ing been  called  out  and  employed  in  both  towns.  All  the  other 
meetings  that  were  held,  both  assembled  and  dispersed  in  peace. 
But  the  state  of  feeling  that  everywhere  prevailed  among  the 
operatives  was  such  as  excited  the  greatest  anxiety  and  appre- 
hension. The  communications  received  by  government  repre- 
sented the  country  as  being  almost  on  the  eve  of  an  insurrection. 
Indeed,  ministers  were  led  at  one  time  to  believe  that  a  plan  had 
been  arranged  for  a  general  rising  on  a  particular  day  (the  1st 
of  November).  The  facts  may  have  been  exaggerated  in  many 
cases  by  design  or  by  fear;  but  that  the  popular  temper  was  in 
a  highly  combustible  and  alarming  state,  there  can  be  no  doubt. 

A  dissatisfaction  with  the  existing  laws  for  the  repression  of 

sedition  was  one  of  the  first  feelings  inspired  in  minis- 
Deliberations  "    . 

of  govern-  ters  and  many  or  their  adherents  by  the  events  of  the 
1 6th  of  August  at  Manchester.  So  early  as  on  the  li)th 
of  that  month,  Lord  Redesdale,  in  a  letter  to  Lord  Sidmouth,1 
while  maintaining  the  very  strong  doctrine,  that  "every  meeting 
for  radical  reform  was  not  merely  a  seditious  attempt  to  undermine 
the,  existing  constitution  of  government  by  bringing  it  into  hatred 
»nd  contempt,  but  was  an  overt  act  of  treasonable  conspiracy 
against  that  consiitution  of  government,  including  the  king  as  its 
head,"  admits  that  "something  more  explicit  was  now  required," 
and  suggests  that  a  declaratory  law  should  be  passed, "  to  remove 
1  Life  of  Lord  Sidmouth,  Hi.  p.  228. 


CHAP.  XVII.J     NEW  SESSION  OF  PARLIAMENT.  261 

all  doubt  of  the  treasonable  criminality  of  such  assemblies.'" 
About  the  same  time  we  find  Lord  Eldon  writing  to  his  brother :  * 
"  Jn  fact,  the  state  of  our  law  is  so  inapplicable  to  existing  cir- 
cumstances, that  we  can't  meet  the  present  case  ;  and  I  am  as 
convinced  as  I  am  of  my  existence,  that  if  parliament  don't  forth- 
with assemble,  there  is  nothing  that  can  be  done  but  to  let  those 
meetings  take  place,  reading  the  Riot  Act  if  there  be  a  riot  at 
any  of  them."  Lord  Sidmouth  accordingly,2  early  in  September 
proposed  to  Lord  Liverpool  that  parliament  should  be  assembled 
as  soon  as  possible.  The  premier  was  then  opposed  to  the  sug- 
gestion ;  a  cabinet  council,  which  met  on  the  15th  of  September, 
came  to  no  decision;  another,  which  met  on  the  21st,  decided 
against  Sidmouth's  views  :  but  at  a  third  meeting,  on  the  8th  of 
October,  an  order  for  the  assembling  of  parliament  on  the  23d 
of  November  was  agreed  upon. 

The  se-sion  was  accordingly  opened  on  that  day  by  the  Prince 
Regent  in  person.  Amendments  to  the  address  were  session  of 
moved  by  the  opposition  in  both  Houses,  and  long  de-  parliament 
bates  ensued  —  that  in  the  Commons  extending  over  two  nights, 
and  till  live  o'clock  in  the  morning  of  the  third  day ;  but  the 
ministerial  majorities  on  the  division  were  151)  to  34  in  the 
^ords,  and  381  to  150  in  the  Commons.  A  collection  of  papers 
.•elative  to  the  internal  state  of  the  country  having  then  been  pre- 
sented by  command  of  the  Prince  Regent,  four  bills  were  intro- 
duced in  the  Lords  on  the  29th  of  November :  one  by  the  Lord 
Chancellor,  entitled,  ''An  Act  to  prevent  Delay  in  the  Adminis- 
tration of  Justice  hi  Cases  of  Misdemeanor;  "  the  three  others, by 
Lord  Sidmouth,  entitled,  severally,  "An  Act  to  prevent  the  Train- 
ing of  Persons  to  the  Use  of  Arms,  and  to  the  Practice  of  Mili- 
tary Evolutions  and  Exercise  ;"  "An  Act  for  the  more  effectual 
Prevention  and  Punishment  of  Blasphemous  and  Seditious  Li- 
bels ; "  and  "An  Act  to  authorize  Justices  of  the  Peace,  in  certain 
disturbed  Counties,  to  seize  and  detain  Arms  collected  and  kept 
for  purposes  dangerous  to  the  Public  Peace  ;  to  continue  in  force 
until  the  loth  of  March,  1822."  On  the  3d  of  December,  Lord 
Castlereagh  introduced  in  the  Commons  a  bill  entitled,  "An  Act 
to  subject  certain  Publications  to  the  Duties  of  Stamps  upon 
Newspapers,  and  to  make  other  Regulations  for  restraining  the 
Abuses  arising  from  the  Publication  of  Blasphemous  and  Seditious 
Libels  ; "  and  on  the  17th  of  that  month,  Lord  Sidmouth  introduced 
in  the  Lords  a  bill  entitled,  "An  Act  for  more  effectually  prevent- 
ing Seditious  Meetings  and  Assemblies ;  to  continue  in  force  until 
the  end  of  the  session  of  parliament  next  after  five  years  from 
the  passing  of  the  Act."  These  measures,  which  became  memor- 
able under  the  designation  of  the  Six  Acts,  were  strenously  re- 
1  Life  of  Lord  Eldon.  ii.  p.  337.  2  Life  of  Lord  Sidmouth,  iii.  p.  280,  &o. 


262  HISTORY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [Boon  I 

sisted  at  every  stage  ;  but  they  were  all  eventually  passed.  Both 
Houses  then  adjourned,  on  the  29th  of  December,  to  the  loth  of 
February,  1820. 

In  this  interval,  an  event  occurred,  without  occasioning  any 
Death  of  change  whatever  except  only  of  certain  names  and 
iotwan11''  f°rrns»  which,  if  it  had  happened  twenty  or  even  fif- 
1820.  teen  years  before,  might  possibly  have  given  a  new 

movement  to  the  whole  political  system  of  this  country  and  of 
Europe.  Yet  it  was  not  without  a  momentary  pause  of  solemn 
and  even  somewhat  tender  emotion  that  all  ranks  of  the  people 
received  the  announcement  that  the  old  King  was  no  more.  After 
a  seclusion  of  nearly  ten  years,  George  III.  died  at  Windsor,  on 
the  evening  of  Saturday,  the  29th  of  January,  1820,  in  the  eighty- 
second  year  of  this  age,  and  the  sixtieth  of  his  reign.  The 
death  of  his  majesty  had  been  preceded  by  that  of  his  fourth 
son,  the  Duke  of  Kent,  in  his  fifty-third  year,  on  the  23d  of  the 
same  month.  Thus,  within  little  more  than  two  years,  had  been 
taken  away  the  King  and  Queen,  the  actual  wearers  of  the  crown, 
the  daughter  and  only  child  of  him  by  whom  it  was  inherited, 
and  the  father  of  her  to  whom  it  was  eventually  to  fall.  The 
birth  of  that  other  daughter  and  only  child,  our  present  gracious 
sovereign,  had  taken  place  on  the  24th  of  May,  1819.  In  the  same 
year,  a  son  had  also  been  born,  on  the  26th  of  March,  to  the 
Duke  of  Cambridge  ;  a  daughter,  who  died  on  the  same  day,  the 
27th  of  March,  to  the  Duke  of  Clarence ;  and  a  son  on  the  27th 
of  May,  to  the  Duke  of  Cumberland. 


CHAP.  I.]  REVIVAL  OF  SEDITION.  263 


BOOK    II. 


CHAPTER    I. 

THERE  had  been  a  subsidence,  for  some  time  before  the  Man- 
chester massacre  of  August,  1819,  of  the  sedition  and  Reyivaiof 
rebellious  intentions  of  the  sufferers  and  demagogues  sedition, 
who  had  caused  a  panic  to  the  government,  and  a  portion  of  the 
country  magistracy  of  England  and  Scotland.  The  extensive 
conspiracy  supposed  by  the  ruling  powers  had  never  existed ; 
and  the  separate  parties  of  malcontents  who  had  employed  the 
leisure  and  relieved  the  painful  thoughts  of  poverty  in  seditious 
movements,  had  become  tired  of  fruitless  efforts,  of  disappoint- 
ment in  their  leaders,  and  of  that  failure  in  combination  which  is 
the  invariable  lot  of  the  ill-informed  and  inexperienced,  when 
they  aim  at  objects  too  large  f  >r  their  powers.  Their  funds  fell 
off;  their  drillings  ceased  from  non-attendance  ;  and  they  dropped 
back  into  their  sad  homes,  to  mutter  there  their  discontents,  or 
wait  for  better  days.  But  the  Manchester  affair  and  the  subse- 
quent proceedings  roused  them  again  as  by  an  express  summons ; 
and  during  the  months  of  September,  October,  and  November,1 
there  was  a  busy  reorganization  of  the  associations  of  the  dis- 
contented, who  put  aside  their  mutual  quarrels  to  carry  on  the 
grand  one  with  the  government.  It  was  in  November  that  Sir 
Herbert  Taylor,2  who  held  a  high  office  in  the  establishment  of 
the  King,  was  accosted  at  Windsor  by  a  man  named  Edwards, 
who  kept  a  small  shop  at  Eton  for  the  sale  of  plaster  casts,  and 
who  gave  information  of  a  desperate  plot  against  the  cato  street 
ministers.  This  information  was,  of  course,  immedi-  Conspiracy, 
ately  communicated  to  Lord  Sidmouth.  Edwards  was  taken, 
into  the  pay  of  the  Home  Office  ;  and  the  police  were  employed 
to  verify  his  statements  during  the  months  when  he  stimulated 
the  purposes  of  the  conspirators,  and  received  their  confidence, 
in  order  to  betray  them,  day  by  day,  to  his  paymasters.  It  was 
after  the  affair  became  known  to  the  government,  that  an  emis- 
sary of  Oliver  the  spy  appeared  at  Middleton  and  elsewhere, 

»  Edinburgh  Review,  sssjii.  p.  211.       2  Life  of  Lor4  Sjcjnjouth,  Hi.  p.  215, 


264:  HISTORY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [BOOK  II. 

and  told  of  other  agents  who  were  going  about  the  country  with 
the  same  commission1- — -to  engage  the  discontented  to  join  in  the 
plot  of  Thistlewood  and  his  comrades  to  as-a-sinate  the  ministers, 
seize  the  Bank,  the  Mansion-house,  and  the  Tower,  and  establish 
a  provisional  ^government.  The  discontented  refused  to  join. 
The  scheme  was  too  horrible  and  too  foolish.  In  the  end  it  ap- 
peared that  the  number  involved  was  very  small ;  so  small  that 
the  affair  would  scarcely  deserve  a  place  in  history,  but  for  the 
atrocity  of  the  plan,  and  the  illustration  the  event  affords  of  the 
working  of  the  spy  system  adopted  by  the  government  of  the  day. 
The  leader,  Thistlewood,  was  a  desperate  man  ;  too  vindictive 
about  his  private  wrongs  to  make  much  pretence  of  patriotism. 
lie  had  been  engaged  with  the  Watsons,  and  acquitted  on  his 
trial  for  that  matter.2  After  his  acquittal,  he  had  sent  a  chal- 
lenge to  Lord  Sidmouth  ;  and  this  piece  of  audacity  had  pro- 
cured him  a  year's  imprisonment.  He  came  out  of  jail  thirsting 
for  the  blood  of  the  minister.  He  drew  about  him  a  few  igno- 
rant and  desperate  men  ;  and  they  would  have  attempted  the 
deed  at  once  —  in  the  autumn  of  1819  —  but  for  a  series  of  acci- 
dents which  delayed  the  enterprise,  and  gave  time  for  an  aggra- 
vation of  their  wickedness  by  the  arts  of  Edwards  the  informer. 
When  the  affair  had  been  delayed  till  Christmas,  there  came  the 
dispersion  of  the  intended  victims  for  the  holidays ;  and  then  the 
death  of  the  King  and  the  Duke  of  Kent,  and  the  royal  funerals  ; 
and,  perhaps,  Edwards,  who  furnished  the  party  with  so  much 
information  about  the  ministers,  might  have  told  the  conspirators 
how  uncertain  was  the  tenure  of  office  by  their  enemies,  who 
were  very  near  going  out  immediately  on  the  accession  of  George 
IV. ,  on  account  of  their  refusal  to  procure  him  a  divorce  from 
his  Queen.8  The  first  record  of  the  existence  of  the  plot  is  in 
a  note  from  the  Duke  of  Wellington  of  the  5th  of  January, 
wherein  he  states,  that  he  had  "•  just  heard  that  Lord  Sidmouth 
had  discovered  another  conspiracy."  On  S  iturday,  February 
19th,  it  was  resolved  by  the  gang  to  murder  the  ministers,  each 
at  his  own  house  ;  and  without  further  delay,  as  their  poverty 
would  not  allow  them  to  wait  any  longer.  On  the  Tuesday,  how- 
ever, Edwards  informed  them  that  there  was  to  be  a  cabinet  din- 
ner at  Lord  Harrowby's  the  next  day.4  Thistlewood  sent  out 
for  a  newspaper,  to  see  if  this  was  true ;  and,  finding  it  to  be  so, 
remarked :  "  As  there  has  not  been  a  dinner  so  long,  there  will, 
no  doubt,  be  fourteen  or  sixteen  there  ;  and  it  will  be  a  rare 
haul  to  murder  them  all  together."  Thus  it  was  settled.  Some 
of  their  number  were  to  watch  Lord  Harrowby's  house  to  see 
that  no  police  or  soldiers  were  brought  there.  One  was  to  call 

1  Bamford,  i.  p.  77.  8  Life  of  Lord  Sidmouth,  iii.  p.  310. 

*  Annual  Register,  1820,  p.  29,  *  Annual  Register,  1820,  p.  30. 


CHAP.  I.]       PLOT. -ARREST  OF  CONSPIRATORS.  265 

with  a  note  while  the  ministers  were  at  dinner ;  and  the  others 
were  then  to  rush  in,  to  commit  the  murders,  carrying  bags  in 
which  to  bring  away  the  heads  of  Lords  Sidmouth  and  Castle- 
reagh.  Then  they  were  to  fire  the  cavalry  barracks,  by  throw- 
ing fire-balls  into  the  straw-sheds ;  and  the  Bank  and  Tower 
were  to  be  taken  by  the  people,  who,  it  was  hoped,  would  rise 
upon  the  spread  of  the  news. 

Edwards  was  not  the  only  traitor.  A  man  named  Hidon,1  who 
afterwards  found  himself  well  recompensed  by  the  gift  of  a 
hackney-coach,  went  from  ihis  final  council  to  warn  Lord  Har- 
rowby,  by  putting  a  letter  into  his  hand  during  his  ride  in  the 
Park.  No  notice  was  apparently  taken.  The  preparations  for 
dinner  went  on  at  Lord  Harrowby's  till  eight  o'clock  in  the 
evening;  but  the 'guests  did  not  arrive.  The  Archbishop  of 
York,  who  lived  next  door,  happened  to  give  a  dinner  that  even- 
ing;  and  the  arrival  of  the  carriages  deceived  tho-eof  I  he  con- 
spirators who  were  on  the  watch  in  the  street,  till  it  was  too  late 
to  give  warning  to  their  comrades,  who  had  assembled  in  a  stable 
in  Cato  Street,  near  the  Edge  ware  Road. 

While  the  conspirators  were  arming  themselves  in  a  room 
above  this  s'able,  by  ihe  light  of  one  or  two  candles,  the  minis- 
ters, having  dined  at  home,  met  at  Lord  Liverpool's  ; 2  where 
they  awai  ed,  in  great  anxiety,  the  lidings  of  what  the  police  and 
soldiers  had  done.  When  the  news  arrived,  it  was  bad.  One 
of  the  police  had  been  stabbed  through  the  heart,  and  This'le- 
wood  had  escaped.  This  was  owing  to  the  soldiers  not  having 
been  ready,  as  ordered,  to  turn  out  at  a  moment's  notice.  The 
police  proceeded  without  them ;  ami  Smi  hers,  the  man  who 
was  killed,  mounted  the  ladder  which  led  from  the  stable  to  the 
upper  room.  This:lewood  stabbed  him.  and  blew,  out -the  light ; 
and  afier  the  exchange  of  a  few  shots  in  the  darkness  and  con- 
fusion, several  of  the  conspira  ors  escaped.  A  reward  of  1000/. 
was  immediately  offered  for  the  apprehension  of  This  lewood  ; 
but  he  was  taken  before  eight  o'clock  the  next  morning,  in  bed 
at  a  friend's  house  in  Moorh'elds.  When  about  fourteen  of  the 
con^pira  ors  h;id  escaped,  the  soldiers  arrived,  and  cap'uied  the 
remainder  of  the  party  —  nine  prisoners  —  and  their  arms  and 
ammunition. 

On  the  publication  of  the  "  Gazette ,"  the  next  morning,  with 
the  proclamation  of  the  reward  for  the  apprehension  of  Thistle- 
wood,  London  was  thrown  into  consternaiion,8  from  the  natural 
supposition  that  this  plot  was  but  the  first  movement  of  a  great 
insurre.-tion.  But  there  is  no  evidence  that  it  ever  extended 
beyond  the  few  desperate  men  who  were  immediately  concerned 

1  Life  of  Lord  Sidmouth,  iii.  p.  317.  a  Ibid.  p.  315. 

8  Annual  Register,  182Q.    Chron.  p.  49. 


266  HISTORY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [BOOK  LL 

in  it.  The  vigilance  of  the  government  and  the  magistracy 
throughout  the  kingdom  detected  no  more  schemes  of  rebellion, 
though  there  were  flying  rumors  from  lime  to  time  of  marches 
of  armies  of  Radicals,  who  were  to  burn  the  towns  and  over- 
turn  ilie  throne.  Those  -who  are  old  enough  to  have 
a  distinct  recollection  of  those  times  are  astonished 
now  to  think  how  great  was  the  panic  which  could  exist  without 
any  evidence  at  all;  how  prodigious  were  the  Radical  forces 
which  were  always  heard  of,  but  never  seen  ;  how  every  shabby 
and  hungry -looking  man  met  on  the  road  was  pronounced  "  a  Rad- 
ical ;  "  how  country  -  gentlemen,  well  armed,  scoured  the  fields 
and  lanes,  and  met  on  heaths  to  fight  the  enemy  who  never  came  ; 
and  how,  even  in  the  midst  of  towns,  young  ladies  carried  heavy 
planks  and  ironing-boards,  to  barricade  windows,  in  preparation 
for  sieges  from  thousands  of  rebels,  whose  footfall  was  long  lis- 
tened for  in  vain  through  the  darkness  of  the  night.  This  imag- 
inary state  of  the  times  was  used  by  the  alarmists  as  an  argu- 
ment against  popular  education  (among  oiher  purposes  to  which 
it  was  turned)  ;  the  plea  being  that  the  leaders  of  the  Radicals, 
having  circulated  proclamations,  must  be  able  to  write  :  and  that 
this  fact  sufficient. y  proved  the  necessity  of  keeping  the  discon- 
tented dumb. 

On  the  next  Sunday,  February  27th,  the  ministers  publicly 
returned  thanks  tor  their  preservation,  in  the  Chapel  Royal,  St 
James's.  The  King,  who  was  at  Brighton,  recovering  from  his 
dangerous  illness,  was  supplied  daily  with  a  minute  account  of 
the  proceedings  in  regard  to  the  conspirators.1  What  he  heard 
seems  to  have  failed  to  convince  him  of  the  true  causes  and  ex- 
tent of  the  treasonable  schemes  of  the  day ;  for  in  the  speech 
delivered  by  commission  previous  to  the  dissolution  of  parlia- 
ment, on  the  13th  of  March,  the  following  notice  is  taken  of  the 
recent  dis.urbances :  2  "  Deeply  as  his  majesty  laments  that  designs 
The  King's  and  practices  sucli  as  those  whii-h  you  have  been  recent- 
speech,  jy  called  upon  to  repress,  should  have  existed  in  this 
free  and  happy  country,  he  cannot  sufficiently  commend  the  pru- 
dence and  firmness  with  which  you  directed  your  aUention  to  tlie 
means  of  counteracting  them.  If  any  doubt  had  remained  as  to 
the  nature  of  those  principles  by  which  the  peace  and  happiness 
of  the  nation  were  so  seriously  manaced,  or  of  the  excesses  to  which 
they  were  likely  to  lead,  the  flagrant  and  sanguinary  conspiracy 
which  has  lately  been  detected  must  open  the  eyes  of  tlie  most 
incredulous,  and  must  vindicate  to  the  whole  world  the  justice 
and  expediency  of  those  measures  to  which  you  thought  it 
necessary  to  resort,  in  defence  of  the  laws  and  constitution  of 
the  kingdom." 

1  Life  of  Lord  Sidmouth,  iii.  p.  321.        2  Annual  Register,  1820,  p.  23. 


CHAP.  I]  EDWARDS  THE   SPY.  267 

On  the  20th  of  April,  Thistle  wood  was  condemned  to  death, 
after  a  trial  of  three  days ;  and  on  the  1st  of  May,  he  and  his 
tour  principal  accomplices  were  executed.  Five  more  who 
pleaded  guilty  had  their  punishment  commuted  to  transportation 
for  lite ;  and  one,  who  appears  to  have  been  present  at  Cato 
Street  without  being  aware  of  the  object  of  the  meeting,  received 
a  free  pardon.1  The  question  which  must  next  occur  to  every 
one  is,  what  became  of  Edwards  ? 

He  was  never  punished ;  and  to  what  extent  he  was  rewarded 
has  never  been  certainly  known.  That,  after  having  been  at  the 
point  of  starvation,  he  was  soon  able  to  assist  Thistlewood  with 
"  some  pounds  "  at  need,  is  known ;  2  and  that  some  of  the  con- 
spirators attributed  their  treason  to  his  instigation  :  and  that  he 
went  about,  giving  away  hand-grenades  and  divers  weapons  of 
atrocious  device,  and  endeavoring  to  persuade  many  persons  to 
blow  up  the  House  of  Commons  ;  and  that  he  was  not  brought 
forward  as  a  witness  in  the  trials  of  the  conspirators,  nor  himself 
ever  arrested  as  a  participator  in  their  designs.  On  the  spies  and 
day  after  the  execution  of  Thistlewood,  Alderman  Wood  informers- 
brought  forward  a  motion  in  the  House,8  in  regard  to  the  conduct 
of  this  man  ;  and  renewed  the  subject  on  the  9th  of  May,4  adduc- 
ing depositions  from  many  persons  which  had  been  brought  be- 
fore him  in  his  magisterial  capacity,  charging  Edwards  with  the 
promulgation  of  horrible  schemes  for  the  destruction  of  the  min- 
L-ters  and  the  parliament,  and  with  many  direct  attempts  to 
seduce  needy  men  to  join  in  those  schemes.  The  information 
further  showed  that  he  had  then  been  living  for  six  weeks  in  great 
.  affluence,  under  an  assumed  name,  in  the  house  of  a  schoolmaster, 
in  St.  George's,  Hanover  Square,  his  host  having  no  idea,  till  in- 
formed by  Edwards  himself,  whom  he  was  harboring.  No  per- 
mission, however,  was  given  by  government  for  justice  to  over- 
take this  wretch.  The  ministerial  members  enlarged  on  the 
necessity  of  employing  such  agency  for  government  purposes 
in  critical  times ;  drew  nice  distinctions  between  the  offices  of 
spy  and  informer ;  disputed  about  the  amount  of  Edwards's  new 
affluence ;  ridiculed  Alderman  Wood,  and  his  supposition  that 
the  Home  Qltice  would  proceed  against  Edwards  on  the  depo- 
sitions furnished  to  Lord  Sidmouth  by  magistrates ;  and  finally 
negatived  the  motion  for  a  select  committee,  to  inquire  into  the 
conduct  of  this  acknowledged  traitor.5  From  that  time,  Ed- 
wards disappeared  ;  and  nothing  more  was  heard  of  him  but  an 
occasional  rumor  that  he  was  living  in  Ireland,  or  on  the  conti- 
nent, in  ease  and  affluence.  He  escaped  punishment  from  the 
hands  of  man ;  but  his  case  was  so  flagrant  and  so  universally 

1  Annual  Register,  1820,  p.  32.  2  Hansard,  i.  (Second  Series,)  p.  290. 

«  Haiisard,  i.  p.  54.  *  Ibid.  p.  242.  6  Ibid.  p.  293. 


268  HISTORY  OF  THE   PEACE.  [Boos  IL 

understoood,  that  probably  no  one  of  the  meanest  of  the  suf- 
ferers from  poverty  and  ignorance  whom  he  endeavored  to  seduce 
would  have  exchanged  conditions  with  him,  loaded  as  his  name 
was  with  infamy,  and  his  soul  with  the  doom  of  his  victims. 

In  Scotland,  an  outbreak  occurred  this  spring.  At  the  end  of 
Sedition  in  March.1  a  vague  alarm  besan  to  spread  of  some  ap- 
Scotiand.  preaching  disturbance ;  and  the  peaceable  work-people 
were  visited  by  commands,  from  unknown  quarters,  to  cease 
their  work.  On  Sunday,  April  2d.  a  treasonable  proclamation 
was  found  posted  up  on  the  walls  all  through  Glasgow,  inviting 
the  people  to  effect  a  revolution,  and  commanding  a  cessation 
of  all  labor.  On  the  Monday  morning,  everybody  stood  idle,  to 
see  what  was  going  to  happen ;  all.  except  the  people  of  some 
cotton-mills,  who  went  to  work  as  usual,  hut  dared  not  return 
after  breakfast.  Nothing  ensued,  except  the  calling  out  of  the 
military  and  the  preparations  of  the  magistracy  for  defence 
against  some  attack  of  whose  nature  they  were,  and  ever 
remained,  entirely  ignorant ;  for  the  alarm  continued  a  mystery. 
Two  d:«ys  afterwards,  one  of  the  Stirlingshire  Yeomanry  was 
met.  near  Kilsyth.  by  a  party  of  armed  men.  who  demanded  his 
weapons.  Some  shots  were  exchanged,  arid  the  man  returned 
to  Kilsvth.  A  detachment  of  twenty  men  was  immediately  sent 
out  to  scour  the  roads ;  and  they  found  a  party  of  rebels,  about 
fifty  in  number,  posted  on  some  high  ground  in  Bonnymuir. 
The  rebels  made  some  resistance,  but  were  soon  overpowered, 
some  being  wounded,  and  nineteen  made  prisoners.  It  appeared 
that  most  of  these  poor  creatures  bad  been  tempted  hither  from 
Glasgow,  in  the  expectation  of  joining  an  army  of  four  or  five 
thousand  men.  who  were  to  take  the  Carron  Iron- works,  and  thus 
supply  themselves  with  artillery.  On  the  s'de  of  the  authorities, 
no  death  was  caused  but  that  of  a  horse  ;  but  the  commanding 
otfirer  and  three  of  his  party  were  wounded.  This  is  the  affair 
which  «roes  by  the  name  of  the  Battle  of  Bonnymuir.  Numrr- 
ou<  arrests  were  made  in  various  parts  of  Scotland ;  but  the 
excite-nent  caused  was  not  great,  and  soon  at  an  end.  In  a  few 
days,  everybody  was  at  work  again,  as  if  nothing  had  happened ; 
and  the  trials,  which  took  place  in  July  and  August,  engaged 
little  attention.  Of  the  person-!  convicied,  all  were  pardoned 
except  three ;  of  these,  two  ha«l  been  active  at  Bonnymuir,  and 
the  third  was  one  of  tho-e  reckless  agitators  who  were,  at  that 
time,  the  curse  of  the  suffering  classes  of  society. 

It  was  while  the  Cato-Street  conspirators  were  lying  in  pr'son 
Tmu  of  the  that  the  leaders  of  the  Manchester  movement  —  Hunt 
B*dkate-  and  his  comftanions  —  underwent  their  trial,  and  re- 
ceived sentence.  The  intervening  months  had  done  much  to  un- 
1  Annual  Register,  1820,  p.  37. 


CHAP.  I.]     TRUE  CHAEACTER  OF  HUNT  REVEALED.      269 

deceive  some  of  Hunt's  followers  as   to   the  character  of  their 
leader,  and  the  prospects  of  any  cause  intrusted  to  such  hands. 

In  the  close  intemnirse  of  imprisonment  and  preparation  for 
trial.  Hunt  lost  all  the  attributes  of  the  hero,  with  which  the 
credulous  imaginations  of  his  admirers  had  invested  him  when 
he  played  the  orator.  One  of  these,  his  fellow  -  prisoner,  de- 
clares that  he  could  not  endure  to  entertain  an  unworthy  opinion 
of  any  of  his  comrades,  and  least  of  all  of  him  who  occupied 
such  a  position  as  Hunt's.  '"  I  deemed  all  reformers  as  good  as 
myself, "  declares  Bam  ford ;  "  and  I  knew  that  I  could  answer 
for  th<>  sincerity  and  disinterestedness  of  my  own  intentions.  It 
was  not  until  years  had  elapsed,  that  observation  and  reflection 
enabled  me  to  penetrate  the  mist  which  had  so  long  enveloped 
me ;  then  it  was  that  I  became  aware  of  the  real  nature  of  past 
transactions,  and  of  the  character  of  some  who  had  been  my 
political  friends  and  fellow-workers  in  the  cause  of  reform." 1 
The  evidence  was  pretty  clear  in  the  case  of  Hunt,  as  Thedema- 
soon  as  he  was  lodged  in  Lancaster  Castle,  where  he  s°sue- 
"crave  way  to  fits  of  impatience  because  no  one  appeared  to 
bail  him ;"  ''generally  made  use  of  the  strongest  terms  he  could, 
at  the  moment,  command  ; "  and  showed  "  exhibitions  of  violent 
feeling."2  In  London,  it  appeared  that  "  he  became  annoying 
and  offensive,  and  his  best  friends  were  sometimes  compelled  to 
defend  themselves  by  not  being  at  home."  On  his  return  from 
Lancaster  to  Manchester,  as  he  sat  ''on  the  box-seat,"  the  hero 
of  the  procession,  there  was  that  in  his  manners  which  made  his 
ingenuous  admirer  "  almost  doubt  whether  he  who  loved  him- 
self so  well  could  ever  really  love  his  country  for  its  own  sake."  8 
"  Hunt  continually  doffed  his  hat,  waived  it  lowly,  bowed  grace- 
fully, and  now  and  then  spoke  a  few  kind  words  to  the  people  ; 
but  if  some  five  or  ten  minutes  elapsed  without  a  huzza  or  two, 
or  the  still  more  pleasing  sounds,  '  Hunt  forever  ! '  he  would  rise 
from  his  seat,  turn  round,  and  cursing  poor  Moorhouse  in  limbs, 
soul,  or  eyes,  he  would  say :  '  Why  don't  you  shout,  man  ?  why 
don't  you  shout?  Give  them  the  hip!  "  When  the  hurrah  was 
produced  by  the  "  hip  "  of  the  panting  and  bourse  subaltern  be- 
hind, "  he  would  resume  his  seat,  and  the  bowing  and  hat-waving 
went  on  as  before."  On  the  trial,  when  the  defence  was  to  begin 
in  the  afternoon,  by  which  time  the  audience  might  probably  be 
weary.  Hunt  reveals  himself  again  to  the  humbler  defendants  : 
*' '  Now,  Bamford,  I  '11  tell  you  what  you  must  do,  if  called  this 
afternoon  ;  you  must  talk  against  time.'  '  Talk  against  time  ! 
what 's  that  ? '  '  You  must  talk  to  put  on  time,  in  order  to  prevent 
them  from  calling  upon  me.  under  any  circumstances,  to-night.'  "4 
Then  came  the  denouncing  in  court  of  his  friend  Carlile,  at  that 
1  Bamford,  ii.  p.  73.  2  ibid.  pp.  5,  41.  8  ibid.  p.  21.  *  Ibid.  p.  76. 


270  HISTORY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [BOOK  IL 

time  under  punishment;  and  next  —  "the  worst  thing"  his 
admirer  "ever  knew  him  do" — slandering  Mrs.  Thistlewood. 
Here  was  enough  ;  the  charm  of  the  mob-orator  was  dissolved. 
"At  times  I  had  some  difficulty  to  avoid  laughing  in  Hunt's 
face ;  at  times  I  was  vexed  at  being  a  party  in  such  a  piece  of 
contemptible  vanity.  I  contrasted  all  this  glare  and  noise  with 
the  useful  results  of  calm,  sober  thought,  and  silent  determina- 
tion ;  and  I  made  up  my  mind  that,  when  once  out  of  this,  I 
would  not,  in  future,  be  a  party  in  such  trumpery  exhibitions  — 
in  the  unworthy  setting  up  of  the  instrument  instead  of  the 
principle  of  a  great  cause." 1  This  is  but  a  fair  representation 
of  the  relation  between  the  demagogue  and  his  followers  in  all 
critical  times  of  any  state;  and  if  such  critical  tim<js  cannot  but 
arise  in  every  state  from  the  inevitable  inequalities  of  human 
condition,  those  have  much  to  answer  for  who,  by  needlessly 
abridging  liberty  of  popular  speech  and  action,  stimulate  the 
powers  of  the  demagogue,  and  the  passions  of  the  simple  and 
ignorant,  who  know  of  no  better  leader. 

The  simple-minded  men  who  had  followed  Hunt  were  surprised, 
when  brought  into  the  presence  of  the  privy  council,  at  the  actual 
appearance  and  manners  of  the  rulers  of  the  land,  whom  they 
had  regarded  as  their  cruel  persecutors.  They  found  no  cruelty 
and  ferocity  in  the  faces  and  demeanor  of  the  tyrants  :  the  "  good- 
looking  person  in  a  plum-colored  coat,  with  a  gold  ring  on  the 
small  finger  of  his  left  hand,  on  which  he  sometimes  leaned  his 
head,"  while  eying  the  prisoners  —  Lord  Castlereagh ;  or  the 
person  who  addressed  them  —  Lord  Sidmouth  —  '-a  tall,  square, 
and  bony  figure,  upwards  of  fifty  years  of  age,  with  thin  and 
rather  gray  hair,  forehead  broad  and  prominent,"  and  whose 
"  mild  and  intelligent  eyes  "  looked  forth  from  "  cavernous  or- 
bits ;  "  his  "  manner  affable,  and  much  more  encouraging  to  free- 
dom of  speech  than  "  had  been  expected.'2  Perhaps  there  was 
something  of  the  same  surprise  on  the  other  side.  It  certainly 
appears  that  the  prisoners  were  treated  with  kindness  and  re- 
spect by  the  great  men  they  had  to  deal  with,  from  the  Home 
Secretary  to  the  police  officials,  when  the  parties  were  brought 
face  to  face.  If  they  could  have  known  each  other  better  before- 
hand —  their  feelings,  ideas,  and  interests  —  perhaps  there  would 
have  been  no  Six  Acts  on  the  one  hand,  or  Spa-fields  and  Man- 
chester meetings  on  the  other.  As  it  was,  the  leaders  and  com- 
rades of  the  discontented  had  to  take  their  trial  at  York,  on  the 
16th  of  this  month  of  March,  1820  ;  they  were  found  guilty,  and 
were  to  appear  for  judgment,  in  the  Court  of  King's  Bench,  at 
the  end  of  April.  They  were  found  guilty  of  unlawful  assem- 
bling, for  the  purpose  of  moving  and  inciting  to  contempt  and 
i  Bamford,  ii.  p.  22.  2  ibid.  i.  p.  106. 


CHAP.  I.]     LESSONS  LEARNED   BY  EXPERIENCE.  271 

hatred  of  the  government ;  and  their  sentences  were  various 
terms  of  imprisonment,  in  different  jails,  and  the  giving  of  large 
securities  for  future  good  behavior.  Hunt  spent  the  next  two 
years  and  a  half  in  Ilchester  jail,  whence  he  sent  forth  incessant 
complaints  of  bad  treatment  —  complaints  which  may  fairly  be 
considered  as  efforts,  natural  in  such  a  man,  to  keep  himself  in 
the  eye  of  the  world,  as  his  followers  appear  to  have  been  satis- 
fied with  the  usage  they  met  with  in  their  several  places  of  con- 
finement. Some  of  them  learned  certain  lessons,  through  the 
experience  of  their  adventures,  which  enlightened  them  as  to  the 
causes  of  social  evils  which  they  had  hoped  to  remedy  by  politi- 
cal action.  They  found,  on  occasion  of  the  trial,  that  "  among 
us  at  York,"  *  "  the  same  really  contemptible  feeling  of  classism, 
the  curse  of  England  and  Englishmen,  and  of  Englishwomen 
also,  existed  in  too  great  a  degree  among  the  witnesses.  There 
were  the  '  broad-cloth  '  and  the  '  narrow-cloth  '  ones  —  the  rich 
a»l  the  poor ;  and  the  former  seldom  sought  opportunities  for 
intercommunication  with  the  latter,  but  rather  shunned  them." 
The  conclusion  drawn  is  one  which  it  is  worth  some  suffering  to 
arrive  at:2  —  "First  of  all,  [tor  men]  to  respect  themselves; 
next,  to  invite  to  a  respectful  equality  by  unoffending  manners  ; 
and,  thirdly,  to  assert  their  right  position  in  society,  by  withhold- 
ing the  smallest  deference  to  mere  assumption.  This  would  be 
quite  sufficient,  without  rudeness  or  noise,  to  restore  the  natural 
balance  of  society."  Such  conclusions,  arrived  at  by  men  whose 
action  is  a  part  of  the  history  of  their  time,  are  a  worthy  subject 
of  historical  record. 

One  other  trial,  for  the  seditions  of  the  preceding  year,  re- 
mained, —  that  of  Sir  Charles  Wolseley  and  a  coadjutor,  Mr. 
Harrison,  for  their  conduct  and  speech  at  a  meeting  in  favor  of 
parliamentary  reform,  at  Stockport,  in  July,  1819.  The  sentence 
was  eighteen  months'  imprisonment,  and  the  giving  of  securities 
at  the  expiration  of  the  term. 

With  the  new  reign,  new  interests  opened,  —  interests  so  gen- 
eral, and  admitting  of  such  overt  expression,  that  the  spies  and 
secret  agitators  who  had,  of  late,  become  the  curse  of  the  coun- 
try, found  themselves  driven  from  their  diabolical  game.  They 
are  not  traceable  among  the  scenes  and  movements  which  were 
now  to  engross  the  mind  of  the  nation,  and  fix  the  attention  of 
the  world. 

»  Bamford,  ii.  p.  89.  «  Ibid.  p.  90. 


272  HISTOKY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [BOOK  II. 


CHAPTER  II. 

THE  one  thing  that  men  said  to  each  other,  in  England  and 
abroad,  when  they  heard  the  news  of  the  death  of  George  III., 
was,  that  never  had  there  been  an  accession  to  the  throne  more 
merely  nominal.  The  new  King  had  virtually  reigned  for  eight 
years  ;  his  opinions  and  character,  in  the  office  of  ruler,  were 
well  known  ;  and  there  would  be  no  change  of  ministry.  There 
would  be  a  royal  funeral,  a  public  mourning,  a  new  parliament, 
and  a  new  regal  title  ;  and  that  would  be  all.  This  saying, 
which  appeared  a  truism,  turned  out  not  to  be  exactly  true. 

The  King  having  died  on  Saturday,  January  21),  1820,  the 
Accession  of  meeting  of  the  privy  council  took  place  on  Sunday, 
George  iv.  when  the  new  sovereign  declared  his  accession,  and 
took  the  oaths  ;  and  on  Monday  he  was  proclaimed.1  For  some 
days  he  had  been  ill ;  and  almost  before  his  proclamation  was 
over,  he  was  in  a  state  of  great  danger  from  inflammation  of  the 
lungs.  During  that  week  there  was  an  expectation  that  this 
would  prove  the  shortest  reign  in  English  history  —  the  sharp- 
est lesson  ever  given  as  to  the  nearness  of  the  throne  to  the 
grave ;  but  after  a  struggle  of  nine  days,  the  disease  was  over- 
come, and  the  business  of  a  new  reign  proceeded. 

The  demise  of  the  crown  having  happened  during  the  parlia- 
mentary recess,  the  two  Houses,  in  obedience  to  the  bidding  of 
the  law  in  such  cases,  met  immediately  —  that  is,  on  the  Sunday, 
when  the  Lords  were  sworn  in.  The  Commons  had  to  wait  till 
Monday,  for  the  return  to  town  of  the  Lord  High  Steward.  After 
the  administration  of  the  oaths,  both  Houses  adjourned  to  the 
day  after  the  royal  funeral,  which  was  to  take  place  on  the  16th 
of  February.  During  this  interval,  while  people  in  the  streets 
were  talking  of  the  singular  quietness  and  absence  of  change 
under  this  new  reign,  so  that  the  resignation  of  ministers  had 
been  a  mere  fcrm,  those  ministers  were  in  daily  expectation  of 
being  dismissed  by  their  sovereign,  while  their  heads  were  in 
hourly  danger  from  Thistlewood  and  his  gang,  whose  quarrel 
with  them  was  as  holders  of  the  offices  which  they  believed 
themselves  about  to  vacate. 

1  Annual  Register,  1820,  pp.  16, 17. 


CHAP.  II.]  AN  UNHAPPY  MARRIAGE.  273 

The  King,  while  yet  suspended,  as  it  were,  over  the  grave,  was 
planning  to  begin  life  anew.  He  required  perempto-  position  of 
rily  from  his  ministers  that  they  should  procure  him  a  the  Queen- 
divorce  ; 1  and  they,  unable  to  endure  the  idea  of  such  a  scandal, 
positively  refused.  On  the  13th  of  February,  Lord  Sidmouth, 
in  a  note  to  Earl  Talbot,  in  apology  for  not  having  written 
sooner,  said : 2  "If  you  knew  how  the  day  was  passed,  you 
would  not  be  surprised  at  the  omission.  The  government  is  in  a 
very  strange,  and,  I  must  acknowledge,  in  a  precarious  state." 
The  ministers  remained  in  office  by  a  compromise  on  this  point 
which  afterwards  cost  them  dear.  They  induced  the  King  to  drop 
the  subject  by  pointing  out  the  advantage  of  the  Queen  remain- 
ing quietly  abroad,  which  she  would  no  doubt  do  if  impunity 
from  divorce  were  granted  her  on  that  condition  ;  and  they 
readily  promised  to  gratify  the  King's  wishes,  if  she  should  return 
to  give  any  trouble.  When  they  gave  this  promise,  they  little 
understood  the  woman  they  had  to  deal  with,  or  the  disposition 
of  the  English  people  to  succor  and  protect  the  unhappy  and 
oppressed,  irrespective  of  the  moral  merits  or  demerits  of  the 
sufferer. 

No  pity  can  be  too  deep  for  the  misfortunes  of  all  the  parties 
involved  in  the  unhappy  marriage  which  the  King  was   Kin(?»8 
now  bent  on   having   dissolved.      In  the  early  days   marriage 

in  1  "Q^ 

when  the  young  Prince  of  Wales  had  a  heart  which 
might  have  expanded  and  warmed  under  happy  domestic  influ- 
ences, his  feelings  were  cruelly  dealt  with  ;  he  was  under  the 
common  doom  of  English  princes,  forbidden  to  marry  where  he 
loved.  He  was  not  gratified  in  his  natural  wish  to  travel  abroad, 
where  he  might  possibly  have  seen  some  lady,  included  within 
the  provisions  of  the  Royal  Marriage  Act,  whom  he  might  have 
loved.  He  knew  himself  to  be  disliked  by  his  parents ;  and  it 
was  almost  inevitable  that  he  should  seek  solace  in  an  illicit  love, 
and  in  extravagant  pleasures.  He  loved  Mrs.  Fitzherbert ;  and 
plunged  into  debt  so  deep  that  it  caused  parliament  two  months' 
debate  to  settle  how  he  should  be  extricated.  By  this  debate, 
and  some  misunderstandings  about  his  debts,  his  feelings  were 
exasperated  ;  and  it  was  in  a  spirit  of  recklessness  that  he  agreed 
to  marry  somebody  —  anybody  —  chosen  for  him  by  the  King. 
He  looked  upon  his  marriage  as  a  state  necessity,  and  as  an  un- 
avoidable method  of  getting  his  debts  paid.  The  King  decided 
that  he  should  marry  the  Princess  Caroline  of  Brunswick,  the 
second  daughter  of  the  King's  sister  ;  and  commands  were  sent  to 
Lord  Malmeebury,  at  Hanover,  to  repair  to  Brunswick,  to  ask 
the  Princess  Caroline  in  marriage  for  the  Prince  of  Wales.  No 

1  Life  of  Lord  Chancellor  Eldon,  ii.  p.  367. 

2  Life  of  Lord  Sidmouth,  iii.  p.  310. 

VOL.   II.  18 


274  HISTORY   OF   THE   PEACE.  [BOOK  H 

discretion  was  allowed  to  Lord  Malmesbury  !  —  no  time  for  ob- 
servation —  no  opportunity  for  making  any  cautionary  represen- 
tations. All  wa^  considered  settled  before  the  negotiator  saw  the 
poor  young  creature  \vho  thought  herself  the  most  fortunate  of 
princesses.  "  All  the  young  German  princesses  had  learned 
English,  in  hopes  of  being  Princess  of  Wales."  '2  The  tale  of 
this  courtship  read  now,  after  the  event,  is  truly  sad.  The  gay 
nights  of  the  young  bird  before  going  into  the  net,  and  the  clos- 
ing down  of  her  fate  upon  her,  make  the  heart  ache.  "  The 
Princess  Caroline  much  embarrassed,"  says  the  Earl  of  Malmes- 
bury in  his  Diary,3  "  on  my  first  being  presented  to  her ;  pretty 

face  —  not  expressive  of  softness  —  her  figure  not  graceful 

Vastly  happy  with  her  future  expectations.  The  Duchess  [the 
mother]  full  of  nothing  else  —  talks  incessantly."  If  this  Duch- 
ess could,  for  a  single  moment,  have  seen  what  she  had  to  answer 
for  in  her  miseducation  of  her  daughter,  it  might  have  made  her 
dumb  with  grief  and  shame,  instead  of  talkative  with  triumph  ; 
but  she  was  not  a  woman  who  could  feel  responsibility.  She 
was  no  more  able  to  think  and  feel  on  behalf  of  her  daughter 
than  her  brother,  the  King  of  England,  on  behalf  of  his  son ; 
and  the  wretchedness  of  their  children  in  marriage  was,  therefore, 
assured  beforehand.  As  for  the  father,  the  Duke  of  Brunswick, 
"  he  entered  fully  into  her  future  situation  —  was  perfectly  aware 
of  the  character  of  the  Prince,  and  of  the  inconveniences  which 
would  result,  almost  with  equal  ill  effect,  either  from  his  liking 
the  Princess  too  much  or  too  little.  He  said  of  his  daughter: 
'  Elle  n'est  pas  bete,  mais  elle  n'a  pas  de  jugement  —  elle  a  ete 
elevee  severement,  et  il  le  falloit.'  —  (She  is  no  fool ;  but  she 
has  no  judgment.  She  has  been  severely  brought  up ;  and  it 
was  necessary.)  He  desired  me  to  advise  her  never  to  show  any 
jealousy  of  the  Prince. ' 4  As  for  this  severity  of  training,  Lord 
Malmesbury  certainly  thought  less  well  of  the  method  than  those 
who  had  adopted  it.  He  says : 8  •'  If  her  education  had  been 
what  it  ought,  she  might  have  turned  out  excellent ;  but  it  was 
that  very  nonsensical  one  that  most  women  receive  —  one  of 
privation,  injunction,  and  menace."  And  how  had  it  issued  ? 
Her  lather  observes,  "  that  his  daughter  writes  very  ill,  and 
spells  ill,  and  he  was  desirous  that  this  should  not  appear."  6 
"  Princess  Caroline  very  missish  at  supper.  I  much  fear  these 
habits  are  irrecoverably  rooted  in  her.  She  is  naturally  curious 
and  a  gossip ;  she  is  quick  and  observing,  and  she  has  a  silly 
pride  of  finding  out  everything." 7  "  Argument  with  the  Princess 
about  her  toilet.  She  piques  herself  on  dressing  quick ;  I  dis- 

1  Diaries  and  Correspondence  of  the  Earl  of  Malmesburv,  iii.  p.  147. 

2  Diaries,  iii.  p.  151.  «  Ibid.  p.  148.  *  Ibid.  p.  159. 
*  Ibid.  p.  ISU.                                  «  Ibid.  p.  181.  1  Ibid.  p.  193. 


CHAP.  II.]  PRINCESS    CAROLINE.  275 

approve  this.  She  maintains  her  point.  I,  however,  desire 
Madame  Busche  to  explain  to  her"  what  a  neat  toilet  is.  "  She 
neglects  it  sadly,  and  is  offensive  from  this  neglect."  1  "  It  is 
remarkable  how  amazingly,  on  this  point,  her  education  has  been 
neglected,  and  how  much  her  mother,  although  an  Englishwoman, 
was  inattentive  to  it."2  While  such  was  her  training,  her  natu- 
ral qualities  were  good  ;  and  if  they  had  had  fair  scope  in  pri- 
vate life,  would  have  made  her  happy  and  beloved.  "  Next  to 
Princess  Caroline  at  table,"  says  the  diarist.  "  She  improves 
very  much  on  a  closer  acquaintance  ;  cheerful,  and  loves  laugh- 
ing." a  On  board  ship,  "  impossible  to  be  more  cheerful,  more 
accommodating,  more  everything  that  is  pleasant,  than  the  Prin- 
cess ;  no  difficulty,  no  childish  fears,  all  good-humor."  4  A  preg- 
nant remark  in  this  Diary  strikes  the  reader  now  as  the  sentence 
of  her  doom.  '•  Walk  with  Sir  B.  Boothby.  We  regret  the 
apparent  facility  of  the  Princess  Caroline's  character,  her  want 
of  reflection  and  substance  ;  agree  that  with  a  steady  man  she 
would  do  vastly  well,  but  with  one  of  a  different  description 
there  are  great  risks." 5  And  while  the  Princess  was  "  vastly 
happy  with  her  future  expectations,"  the  King  of  England  was 
writing  to  her  mother  that  he  hoped  his  niece  would  not  have 
too  much  liveliness,  and  that  she  would  lead  a  sedentary  and 
retired  life.  "  These  words  shock  the  Princess  Caroline,"  Lord 
Malmesbury  says.6  She  heard  of  some  other  things  too,  which 
had  a  sobering  effect.  "  It  put  a  curb  on  her  desire  for  amuse- 
ment —  a  drawback  on  her  situation,  and  made  her  feel  that  it 
was  not  to  be  all  one  of  roses."  7 

How  wretched  it  was  to  be,  was  too  plain  in  a  moment  to 
the  only  witness  of  the  first  interview,  Lord  Malmesbury.  The 
Princess  kneeled,  as  she  had  been  instructed,  and  the  Prince 
raised  her  "gracefully  enough."  He  instantly  left  her;  and  be- 
fore she  had  seen  any  other  member  of  the  family,  vented  to  the 
Queen  his  dislike  of  the  young  stranger  whom  he  was  to  make 
his  wife  in  three  days.  She,  meantime,  left  thus  alone,  "was  in 
a  state  of  astonishment,"  and  inquired  whether  the  Prince  was 
always  like  this.  She  had  but  too  much  reason  to  know  soon, 
that,  to  her,  he  was  to  be  always  like  this.  Meantime,  she  found 
him  very  fat,  and  not  nearly  so  good-looking  as  his  portrait. 
Her  only  friend  in  England  reports,8  that  "  she  was  disposed  to 
further  criticisms  on  this  occasion,  which  would  have  embarrassed 
me  very  much  to  answer,  if  luckily  the  King  had  not  ordered  me 
to  attend  him."  A  more  desolate  creature  than  he  left  behind 
him  never  claimed  pity  from  the  lowliest  who  has  any  one  to 
love. 

l  Diaries,  iii.  p.  201.         2  Ibid.  p.  204.        »  Ibid.  p.  162.        <  Ibid.  p.  208. 
•  Ibid.  p.  176.  «  Ibid.  p.  183.        ^  Ibid.  p.  197.        8  Ibid.  p.  210 


276  HISTORY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [BOOK  H. 

The  marriage-ceremony  took  place  three  days  after.  Lord 
Malmesbury  records  that  "the  Prince  was  very  civil  and  gra- 
cious ;  but  I  thought  I  could  perceive  he  was  not  quite  sincere, 
and  certainly  unhappy ;  and  as  a  proof  of  it,  he  had  manifestly 
had  recourse  to  wine  or  spirits."1 

Such  was  the  marriage  which  the  husband  desired,  as  soon  as 
he  became  king,  to  have  dissolved.  From  the  beginning  he  had 
attached  his  wife  by  no  conjugal  qualities ;  he  had  never  re- 
spected her  rights,  or  considered  her  feelings ;  and  it  was  doubt- 
less a  great  relief  to  both  when  she  went  abroad  to  live  —  a  step 
which  she  had  taken  some  years  before,  in  1814.  Careless  as  lie 
had  been  of  her  rights  and  her  feelings,  he  watched  her  conduct ; 
and  when  rumors  spread  of  infidelity  on  her  side,  he  sent 
abroad,  in  1818,  a  commission  to  collect  evidence,  and  to  observe 
her  proceedings.  It  is  not  to  be  wondered  at,  if  one  who  could 
not  be  made  to  understand  anything  of  feminine  reserve  or  royal 
dignity  whilv  yet  in  her  father's  house,  should  lay  herself  open 
to  the  criticism,  both  of  enemies  and  ordinary  observers,  when 
her  womanly  feelings  had,  for  a  course  of  years,  been  outraged, 
and  her  genial  affections  repressed;  when  she  liad  been  long 
deserted  by  her  husband,  and  separated  from  her  child.  Abroad, 
she  escaped  from  the  heartless  set  among  whom  she  wa>  doomed 
to  dwell  at  home  ;  and  she  enjoyed,  the  more  by  contrast,  the  free- 
dom of  continental  manners.  Whatever  might  be  the  truth  about 
the  extent  of  her  indiscretions,  her  freedom  was  certainly  more 
than  her  chief  enemy,  her  husband,  chose  to  permit.  Their  only 
child  was  dead,  and  now  he  was  eager  to  render  himself  free  lor 
another  marriage. 

The  wife  was  not  unprepared  for  the  persecution  which  now 
awaited  her ;  for  she  had  had  more  than  one  taste  of  it  already. 
She  had  been  sent  to  reside  at  Blackheath,  in  her  early  marriage- 
days,  in  a  sort  of  court  banishment;  and  there  her  mo.st  trivial 
proceedings  were  watched,  and,  at  length,  her  servants  were 
brought  up  before  the  Lords  charged  with  the  "  delicate  investi- 
gation," and  closely  examined,  without  any  previous  warning  to 
their  mistress  or  themselves.  She  was  declared  innocent  of  all 
serious  offence ;  and  the  King,  her  father-in-law,  would  have  in- 
vited her  to  court ;  but  her  husband  would  not  hear  of  such  an 
atonement.  According  to  all  the  testimony  of  the  time,  she  con- 
ducted herself  extremely  well  under  these  trying  circumstances. 

Mr.  Perceval  was  her  adviser  at  that  time;  and  at  that  time 
he  made  a  mistake  very  injurious  to  her  and  to  himself.  He 
collected  and  had  printed  all  the  documents  connected  with  the 
"delicate  investigation,"  probably  iu  the  hope  of  damaging  the 
Priuce  and  his  friends ;  but  he  presently  perceived  that  the  step 
1  Diaries,  Hi.  p.  213. 


Cnxr.  II.]  THE   QUEEN  ABROAD.  277 

would  injure  no  one  more  than  the  woman  whose  name  had 
already  been  so  cruelly  abused.  A  copy  of  "  the  book,"  as  it  was 
called,  was  stolen  off  his  table  one  day ;  and  he  had  to  pay 
bribes  to  the  amount  of  £10,000  before  he  could  be  sure  of  its 
being  suppressed.  The  wisest  thing  the  Princess  could  now  have 
done,  would  have  been  to  remain  on  the  spot  where  she  had  been 
justified.  But  her  life  was  intolerably  irksome  to  her  ;  and  she 
went  abroad  in  1814,  against  the  advice  of  her  friends,  in  the  hope 
of  breathing  more  freely.  But  a  watch  was  set  on  her  there  too. 
Sir  John  Leach,  first  law-adviser  to  the  Prince,  declared  that,  in 
order  to  prepare  for  a  divorce  suit,  certain  competent  persons 
should  be  sent  to  Italy,  to  collect  evidence  there  against  the 
Princess  ;  and  a  commission  was  accordingly  appointed,  under 
the  sanction  of  Lords  Eldon  and  Liverpool,  to  carry  on  another 
"delicate  investigation,'1 — but  this  time  without  the  knowledge 
of  the  accused.  It  was  this  Milan  commission  which  supplied 
the  evidence  on  which,  at  last,  the  prosecution  proceeded,  —  evi- 
dence which  was  scouted  by  the  common  sense  and  decency  of 
all  England. 

As  the  time  approached  when  the  Princess  was  likely  to  be- 
come Queen  of  England,  indications  were  given  of  the  The  Queen 
treatment  she  would  receive  at  that  crisis.  Our  am-  llbroa(i- 
bassadors  abroad  were  instructed  to  prevent  her  admission,  at 
foreign  courts,  by  refusing  to  countenance  any  such  admission. 
They  were  not  to  afford  her  any  official  reception,  or  recognition 
whatever  ;  and  at  home,  the  last  insult  was  offered  her,  by  the 
omission  of  her  name  from  the  liturgy,  when  that  of  her  husband 
took  its  place  there  as  king.  But  for  this,  she  might  probably 
have  remained  abroad,  and  given  no  further  trouble.  The  min- 
isters consented  to  this  omission ;  and  thereby  destroyed  the 
effect  of  their  compromise  with  the  King.  The  r  obj'-ct  was  to 
avoid  the  scandal  of  a  public  prosecution,  which  they  were  aware 
would  bring  the  crown  into  contempt;  and  yet  to  avoid  recogniz- 
ing her  as  a  queen  who  could  preside  over  a  court.  They  did 
not  know  tin-  spirit  of  the  English  people,  or  they  would  have 
seen  that  the  crown  could  not  be  more  degraded  than  by  the 
persecution  of  a  woman,  by  excluding  her  from  the  public 
prayers  of  the  nation.  By  this  act  they  at  once  created  that 
peculiar  interest  which  is  beautifully  indicated  by  the  saying  of 
Mr.  Di-nman,  that  if  she  had  her  place  in  the  prayer-book  at  all, 
it  was  in  the  prayer  for  "all  that  are  desolate  and  oppressed." 
The  news  of  this  insult  reached  her  in  Italy  ;  and  she  immedi- 
ately wrote  to  Lord  Liverpool,  to  demand  the  insertion  of  her 
name  in  the  liturgy,  and  announce  her  intention  of  returning  to 
England. 

She  came.     The  ministers  were  bound  by  their  promise  to  the 


278  HISTORY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [BOOK  IT. 

King  to  obtain  a  divorce.  "  Her  promptitude  and  courage," 
The  Queen's  observes  Mr.  Ward,1  "  confounded  her  opponents,  and 
return.  gained  her  the  favor  of  the  people.  Whatever  one  may 
une'  '  think  of  her  conduct  in  other  respects,  it  is  impossible 
not  to  give  her  credit  for  these  qualities."  There  seemed  to  be 
nothing  left  for  her  to  do  but  to  throw  herself  upon  the  hearts  of 
the  people  of  England,  unless  she  chose  to  acquiesce  in  an  impu- 
tation of  infamy.  In  Rome,  the  guard  of  honor  appropriated  to 
her  as  Queen  of  England  was  refused  to  her  by  Cardinal  Gon- 
salvi,  on  the  ground  of  her  non-recognition  at  home.  The  Em- 
peror of  Austria  had  before  declined  receiving  any  kind  of  visit 
from  her ;  and  she  found  herself  an  outcast  \\  h<jrever  any  inter- 
course with  the  British  court  existed.  She  had  no  course  but  to 
admit  herself  guilty,  or  come  home,  and  meet  the  consequences. 

The  first  queenly  honors  she  received  were  from  the  garrison 
of  Dover,  whose  commandant,  having  been  served  with  no  orders 
to  the  contrary,  of  course  offered  the  customary  salute.  Her 
landing  took  place  on  Tuesday  the  6th  of  June.  An  immense 
multitude,  in  holiday-dress,  received  her  with  acclamations,  when 
she  set  foot  on  English  ground,  after  an  absence  of  six  years. 
An  address  was  presented  to  her  by  the  inhabitants  of  Dover, 
that  evening ;  and  her  reply,  which  pleased  them,  new  over  the 
country,  which  was  eager  to  catch  her  first  words.  She  declared 
herself  happy  to  find  herself  again  in  the  bosom  of  a  noble  and 
generous  nation ;  and  expressed  her  hope  that  the  time  would 
come  when  she  should  be  permitted  to  do  what  she  could  to  pro- 
mote the  happiness  of  her  husband's  subjects.  Her  journey  to 
London,  and  her  progress  through  the  streets,  were  one  continued 
triumph ;  and  the  shouts  of  the  multitude  who  thronged  Pall 
Mall  must  have  been  heard  through  every  corner  of  the  palace 
where  her  husband  sat  meditating  his  plans  for  her  degradation. 
His  mind  could  not  have  been  more  full  of  the  contemplation 
than  was  that  of  almost  every  subject  in  his  kingdom.  "  This 
scandalous  history,"  writes  Mr.  Ward,2  just  after  that  time,  "  holds 
entire  possession  of  men's  minds,  to  the  discredit,  as  well  as  the 
disadvantage  of  the  country.  Brougham's  proposition,  yesterday, 
seems  a  reasonable  one,  that  certain  days  should  be  set  apart  for 
transacting  the  real  business  of  the  country."  The  "  discredit," 
the  immoral  influence,  the  obstruction  to  the  public  business,  are 
imputable  to  the  King,  and  those  who  had  pledged  themselves  to 
support  his  proceedings,  and  who  had  driven  a  desolate  creature 
so  hard  that  she  could  not  but  turn  to  meet  her  pursuers.  Lord 
Eldon  talked  of  his  conscience,  as  usual ;  while  its  operation 
seemed  rather  extraordinary  to  observers  like  Lord  Dudley,  in 
whose  letters  we  find  a  remark  on  "the  example  of  the  present 
1  Lord  Dudley's  Letters,  p.  254.  2  Ibid.  p.  256. 


CHAP.  II.]  THE  KING'S  MESSAGE.  279 

Lord  Chancellor,  who,  having  kept  her  conscience  then,  keeps 
her  offended  husband's  now  —  and  all  for  the  public  good  !  " 

From  the  moment  of  the  announcement  of  the  Queen's  ap- 
proach, the  cabinet-councils  had  been  frequent  and  protracted. 
The  ministers  met  twice  in  a  day,  and  remained  in  consultation 
for  hours.  While  the  multitude  on  the  beach  at  Dover  were 
shouting  their  welcome,  the  King  was  going  in  state  to  the  House 
of  Lords,  which  was  unusually  crowded,  to  give  the  royal  assent 
to  several  bills  already  passed  by  his  new  Parliament ;  and,  after 
he  had  withdrawn,  the  expected  communication  from  him  was 
read  by  the  Lord  Chancellor  from  the  woolsack.  By  this  royal 
message,  the  King  commended  to  the  Lords  an  inquiry  King's  mes- 
into  the  conduct  of  the  Queen,1  in  order  to  the  adoption  **£*> June  6- 
of  "  that  course  of  proceeding  which  the  justice  of  the  case,  and 
the  honor  and  dignity  of  his  Maje-ty's  crown,  may  require." 
Lord  Liverpool  then  laid  on  the  table  the  green  bag  which 
contained  the  papers  criminatory  of  the  Queen.  Lord  Castle- 
reagh  offered  the  green  bag,*  and  read  the  King's  message  to  the 
other  House.  The  Lords  received  the  communication  in  silence, 
and  adjourned,  understanding  that  their  address,  in  reply  to  the 
message,  should  be  considered  the  next  day.  In  the  House  of 
Commons,  there  was  some  vehement  speaking;  and  before  Lord 
'('astlereagh  moved  the  address,  the  next  day,  Mr.  Brougham 
read  to  the  House  a  message  from  the  Queen,  declar-  Queen's  mes- 
ing  that  her  return  to  England  was  occasioned  by  the  sage,  June 7. 
necessity  her  enemies  had  laid  upon  her  of  defending  her  char- 
acter ;  declaring  that,  for  the  fourteen  years  which  had  elapsed 
since  she  was  first  accused,  she  had  steadily  required  the  justice  of 
a  full  investigation  of  her  conduct;  and  demanding  now  a  public 
inquiry,  instead  of  that  secret  investigation  before  a  select  com- 
mittee which  was  proposed  by  the  ministers.  "  She  relies,"  said 
the  message,  "  with  full  confidence  upon  the  integrity  of  the 
House  of  Commons,  for  defeating  the  only  attempt  she  has  any 
reason  to  fear."  8 

Mr.  Brougham  took  the  management  of  the  Queen's  business 
as  h^r  attorney-general.  He  had  been  recognized  in  this  office, 
as  Mr.  Deninan  was  in  that  of  solicitor-general  to  the  Queen,  in 
the  Court  of  Chancery,  the  Vice-Chancellor's  Court,  and  the 
Court  of  King's  Bench.4  on  the  20th  of  April  preceding.  Mr. 
Brougham  had  met  the  Queen  in  France,  on  her  approach  ;  and 
from  this  true  her  affairs  were  under  the  guidance  of  himself  and 
Mr.  Deninan.  They  were  her  commissioners,  as  the  Duke  of 
Wellington  and  Lord  Castlereagh  were  those  of  the  King,  in  the 
negotiation  which  was  now  entered  upon,  alter  the  appointment 

i  Hansard,  i.  p.  871.  2  Annual  Register,  1820,  p.  144. 

8  Hansard,  i.  p.  'J06.  *  Annual  Register,  1820.     Chron.  p.  113 


280  HISTOEY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [BOOK  II. 

of  the  secret  committee  of  inquiry  in  the  House  of  Lords,  in  the 
hope  of  obviating  the  painful  demoralizing  investigation  which 
had  been  proposed  to  both  Houses  of  Parliament. 

It  was  the  Queen  who,  after  a  pause,  first  proposed  this  nego- 
Commission  tiation.  As  a  preliminary  step,  she  required  and  ob- 
agreed  to.  tained  full  assurance  that  her  doing  so  could  not  be 
interpreted  as  an  act  of  quailing  or  retreat.  The  commissioners 
met,  and  agreed  on  the  basis  of  their  negotiation,  —  that  the 
Queen  should  not  be  held  to  admit,  nor  the  King  to  retract,  any- 
thing.1 Of  course,  the  failure  of  the  negotiation  was  included  in 
the  very  terms  of  this  basis.  The  Queen  was  willing  to  live 
abroad  ;  and  the  King  would  agree  to  drop  all  proceedings  against 
her ;  but  she  required  two  things  which  the  King's  commissioners 
refused  to  grant,  —  the  insertion  of  her  name  in  the  liturgy,  or 
some  equivalent  which  would  save  her  honor ;  and  a  reception 
at  foreign  courts  beseeming  her  rank.  She  would  even  have 
been  satisfied  with  such  a  reception  at  some  one  foreign  court, 
where  she  would  fix  her  abode.  On  the  King's  part,  it  was  of- 
fered that  at  some  one  foreign  court  it  should -be  officially  noti- 
fied that  she  was  legally  Queen  of  England  ;  leaving  the  ques- 
tion of  her  reception  or  exclusion  to  the  pleasure  of  that  court. 
As  all  the  world  knew  that  she  was  legally  Queen  of  England, 
and  as  her  exclusion  from  all  foreign  courts  would  inevitably  fol- 
low from  the  discountenance  at  home,  this  proposal  was  naturally 
regarded  by  herself  and  her  advisers  as  a  mockery ;  and  the 
negotiation  was,  on  the  19th  of  June,  announced  to  parliament 
to  have  failed.2 

It  was  now  clear  that  the  investigation  must  proceed.  Some 
attempts  were  made  by  the  House  of  Commons,  on  the  motion  of 
Mr.  Wilberforce,8  to  stop  it,  by  entreating  the  Queen,  under  the 
assurance  of  the  protection  of  her  honor  by  the  Commons,  to 
yield  the  point  of  the  insertion  of  her  name  in  the  liturgy  ;  but 
the  deputation  who  waited  on  her  for  the  purpose  of  presenting 
the  entreaty  were  groaned  at  by  the  crowds  in  the  street,4  and 
the  Queen's  courteous  refusal  was  acceptable  to  the  people.- 
These  proceedings  were  of  benefit  to  her  cause,  and  her  position 
was  now  much  improved.  Her  recognition  as  Queen  of  England, 
was  avowed  by  the  transactions  of  the  commission ;  and  next, 
the  protection  of  the  House  of  Commons  had  been  tendered  to 
her,  in  lieu  of  justice,  and  had  been  declined.  She  was  now,  in 
the  eyes  of  the  whole  world,  a  queen,  a  claimant  for  justice,  as 
well  as  an  accused  woman,  summoned  to  trial.  On  the  motion 
of  Lord  Castlereagh,  the  House  of  Commons,5  on  Monday,  June 

i  Life  of  Lord  Eldon,  ii.  p.  374.  2  Annual  Register,  1820,  p.  166. 

8  Hansard,  i.  p.  1228.  *  Animal  Register,  1820,  p.  174. 

6  Hansard,  i.  p.  1349. 


CHAP.  II.]       BILL  OF  PAINS  AND  PENALTIES.  281 

26th,  adjourned  the  business  of  the  green  bag  and  the  royal 
message  to  Friday,  July  7th,  that  it  might  be  seen  whether  the 
Lords  would  in  the  mean  time  institute  any  proceedings.  It 
would  be  indecent  and  inconvenient  it'  the  two  Houses  should  be 
pursuing  the  same  investigation  at  the  same  time.  The  Upper 
House  was  the  fitter  one  for  the  business ;  and  the  Commons 
were  anxious  to  avoid  meddling  with  it  till  they  should  be 
called  upon  to  consider  any  bill  sent  down  to  them  by  the  Lords. 

The  secret  committee  of  the  Lords  made  its  report  on  the  4th 
of  July.  The  report  declared  that  the  evidence  af-  Lords'  re- 
fecting the  honor  of  the  Queen  was  such  as  to  require,  P°rt'  Jul>r  *• 
for  the  "  dignity  of  the  crown,  and  the  moral  feeling  and  honor 
of  the  country,"  a  "solemn  inquiry,"  which  might  "be  best  ef- 
fected in  the  course  of  a  legislative  proceeding,  the  necessity  of 
which,"  the  committee  declared,  "  they  cannot  but  most  deeply 
deplore."  *  The  Queen  the  next  day  declared,  by  petition  to  the 
Lords,  her  readiness  to  defend  herself,  and  prayed  to  be  heard  by 
counsel,  in  order  to  detail  some  weighty  matters,  which  it  was 
necessary  to  state  in  preparation  for  the 'inquiry.  Her  petition 
was  refused  ;  and  Lord  Liverpool  proceeded  to  propose  the  Bill 
of  Pains  and  Penalties,'2  which  is  the  everlasting  disgrace  of  his 
administration.  The  bill  was  entitled:  ''An  Act  to  BiuofP. ; 
deprive  Her  Majesty,  Queen  Caroline  Amel  a  Eliz-  ana  Pema- 
abeth,  of  the  title,  prerogatives,  rights,  privileges,  tles> 
and  exemptions  of  Queen  Consort  of  this  realm  and  to  dissolve 
the  marriage  between  His  Majesty  and  the  said  Caroline  Amelia 
Elizabeth."  It  charged  the  Queen  with  improper  and  degrading 
conduct  generally,  during  her  residence  abroad,  and  par.  iculaiiy 
with  an  adulterous  connection  \\  ith  a  menial  servant,  named  Barto- 
lomeo  Hergami ;  and  provided  for  her  degradation  ami  divorce.  It 
was  read  a  first  tim  •,  and  copies  were  ordered  to  be  sent  to  the 
Queen,  and  to  her  attorney  and  solicitor-general.  The  next  day, 
her  majesty  offered  to  the  House  of  Lords  her  protest,  and  a  re- 
newed prayer  to  be  heard  by  counsel.  Her  counsel  were  called 
in,  and  instructed  to  confine  themselves  to  the  subject  of  th .'. 
mode  of  procedure  under  the  b.ll.  The  substance  of  their  de- 
mand was  that  the  whole  business,  if  not  dropped,  should  be  pro- 
ceeded with,  without  any  delay,  to  a  final  issue.8  Mr.  Brougham 
declared  that  her  majesty  "  was  clamorous  for  this." 

The  second   reading  of  the  bill  was  fixed  for  the  17th  of  Au- 
gu.-t ;  and  it  was  at  this  stage  that  the  Attorney-Gen-   QIIeen.8 
eral  adduced  the  charges  on  the  part  of  the  crown,  and   trial,  A_U- 
folloued    them    up    by    the    testimony    of    witnesses.    g 
From  this  day  to  the  8th  of  September,  the  House  of  Lords  was 

l  Hansard,  ii.  p.  168.  2  Ibid.  p.  212. 

8  Annual  Register,  Appendix,  p.  967. 


282  HISTORY   OF   THE   PEACE.  [Boon  II. 

occupied  with  the  testimony  offered  on  behalf  of  the  bill.  And  it 
was  not  only  that  House  that  was  thus  occupied.  Nothing  else  was 
heard  of  throughout  the  country  — one  might  almost  say  through- 
out Europe.  From  day  to  day,  indecent  tales  were  told  by  a  party 
of  Italian  domestics,  —  tales  such  as,  at  other  times,  are  only 
whispered  by  the  dissolute  in  private,  and  are  never  offered  to  the 
eye  or  ear  of  the  moral  and  modest  who  compose  the  bulk  of  the 
English  nation.  These  tales  were  now  translated  by  interpreters 
<vt  the  bar  of  the  House  of  Lords,  given  in  full  in  the  newspa- 
pers, and  spread  through  every  town,  hamlet,  and  lone  house 
within  the  four  seas.  The  advisers  of  the  King  said  much  of 
what  the  Queen  had  done  for  the  tainting  of  public  morals  and 
the  degradation  of  the  dignity  of  the  crown  ;  but  it  was  plain  to 
most  people  then,  and  is  to  every  one  now,  that  nothing  that  it 
was  in  her  power  to  do,  if  she  had  been  all  that  her  prosecutors 
declared,  couM  have  so  injured  public  morals  and  degraded  the 
crown  as  the  King's  conduct  in  pursuit  of  his  divorce.  If  he  had 
obtained  it,  it  would  have  been  at  the  cost  of  a  responsibility 
towards  his  people,  the  weight  of  which  could  have  been  borne 
by  no  man  worthy  to  occupy  a  throne. 

That  surh  a  responsibility  was  duly  felt  by  the  sovereign  we 
Uneasiness  have  no  evidence.  That  his  ministers  were  truly 
of  ministers.  wretched  at  this  time,  we  know  from  the  correspond- 
ence of  some  of  them  which  has  since  been  published  to  the 
world  ;  but  they  ascribed  their  suffering  to  the  supposed  dis- 
loyalty and  changed  temper  of  the  English  people ;  and  do  not 
appear  to  have  been  at  all  sensible  that  any  blame  attached 
to  the  government.  The  Lord  Chancellor  writes  to  his  corre- 
spondents of  his  success  in  preserving  the  peace  of  his  con- 
science, and  receives  his  unpopularity  as  an  honorable  martyrdom. 
When  he  wrent  down  to  his  country-seat  at  Encombe,  the  peo- 
ple, even  in  his  own  neighborhood,  shouted  into  his  coach : 
"  Queen  Caroline  forever !  "  J  When  the  Queen's  friends  were  ne- 
gotiating for  a  house  for  her,  next  to  his,  he  never  doubted  that 
it  was  "  for  the  express  purpose  of  annoying  me  ; "  and  cleverly 
bought  it  up,  without  much  danger  of  too  large  a  sacrifice.2  "  The 
purchase-money  is  large,  but  1  have  already  had  such  offers,  that 
I  shall  not,  I  think,  lose  by  it."  He  "  had  a  teasing  day,"3  when 
the  Queen's  first  petition  was  presented  to  the  Lords  ;  the  Queen 
sent  to  him  to  say  she  was  coming ;  and  he  replied  that  he  could 
not,  as  speaker,  admit  ladies  during  the  debates  without  leave. 
Then  he  declined  to  deliver  a  message  from  her ;  and  then  her 
petition  ;  and  for  this  last,  he  says,  "  Messrs.  Grey,  Lansdowne, 
and  Holland,  abused  me  pretty  handsomely."  While  his  family 
and  friends  were  guarding  him  down  to  the  House,  the  people 

i  Life  of  Lord  Eldon,  ii.  p.  386.  2  ibid.  p.  386.  8  Ibid.  p.  376. 


CHAP.  II.]  SYMPATHY  FOR   THE   QUEEN.  283 

beset  the  house  of  Alderman  Wood,  the  Queen's  host,  and  were 
on  the  watch  in  the  Parks  for  the  Queen's  drives,  to  take  her 
hor.ses  from  her  carriage,  and  draw  her  in  triumph  ;  and  the  illu- 
minations in  her  honor  put  the  Lord  Chancellor's  windows  in 
danger.  When  Lords  Sidmouth  and  Castlereagh  were  walking 
arm  in  arm  down  Parliament  Street,1  amidst  the  groans  and  liis-es 
of  the  m^ib,  Lord  Sidmouth  observed  :  "  Here  we  go,  the  two 
most  popular  men  in  England."  "  Yes,"  replied  Lord  Castlereagh, 
'*  through  a  grateful  and  admiring  multitude."  A  political  friend 
and  former  colleague  of  Lord  Sidmouth  writes  to  him  at  this 
time  :  "  I  cannot  describe  to  you  how  grievously  I  suffer,  and 
h;ive  suffered,  on  account  of  the  dangerous  and  deplorable  situa- 
tion in  which  our  country,  the  King's  government,  indeed  all  of 
us,  have  been  so  long  placed  —  a  situation  out  of  which,  I  profess, 
I  see  no  satisfactory,  indeed  no  safe  deliverance."  To  which 
Lord  Sidmouth's  reply  is :  '2  "  In  venting  your  feelings,  you  have 
precisely  expressed  mine.  All  that  just  and  honest  pride  which 
once  gave  comfort  and  dignity  to  a  state  of  existence,  in  this 
country,  is  nearly  cancelled  and  obliterated.  I  am,  however, 
much  more  under  the  influence  of  indignation  than  of  any  feel- 
ing which  approaches  to  despondency."  There  was,  in  truth,  in 
a  different  sense  from  that  which  the  writer  intended,  no  cause 
for-  despondency.  There  was  no  cause  for  despondency  in  seeing 
how  strong  were  the  feelings  of  loyalty  in  England,  though  they 
were  at  present  directed  towards  a  queen  under  prosecution,  in- 
stead of  a  king  on  the  throne.  There  was  no  cause  for  despon- 
dency in  see  ng  how  sound  was  the  heart  of  the  English  people 
in  regard  to  the  weightier  matters  of  the  law — justice  and 
mercy  —  strong  as  is  the  tendency  generally  to  vi-it  such  offences 
as  those  now  in  question  more  severely  on  women  than  on  men. 
Though  it  was  inevitably  a  question  universally  discussed, 
whether  the  person  arraigned  was  guilty  or  not,  the  sympathies  of 
thf  people  did  not  depend  upon  the  answer.  Those  who  regarded 
the  Queen  as  a  wholly  innocent  victim,  and  those  who  believed  her 
driven  into  guilt  by  her  wrongs,  joined  hand  in  hand  to  draw  her 
carriage,  and  strove  who  should  cheer  the  loudest  as  she  passed. 

That  summer  is  distinct  in  the  memory  of  those  who  were  then 
of  mature  age.  It  was  a  season  of  extreme  heat.  Horses 
dropped  dead  on  the  roads,  and  laborers  in  the  fields.  Yet, 
along  the  line  of  the  mails,  crowds  stood  waiting  in  the  burning 
sunshine  for  news  of  the  trial,  and  horsemen  galloped  over  hedge 
and  ditch  to  carry  the  tidings.  In  London,  the  Parks  and  the 
West-end  streets  were  crowded  every  evening  ;  and  through  the 
bright  nights  of  July,  neighbors  were  visiting  one  another's 
houses  to  lend  newspapers  or  compare  rumors.  The  King  was 
1  Life  of  Lord  Sidmouth,  iii.  p.  330.  a  Ibid.  p.  333. 


284  HISTORY   OF   THE   PEACE.  [BOOK  II. 

retired  within  his  palace,  unable  to  come  forth  without  danger  of 
meeting  the  Queen,  or  of  hearing  cheers  in  her  favor.  She  had 
her  two  o'clock  dinner-parties  —  ''  Dr.  Parr  and  a  large  party  "  * 
—  now  a  provincial  mayor  —  now  a  country  baronet  —  now  a 
popular  clergyman  —  come  up  to  tender  his  own  homage  and 
that  of  his  neighbors  ;  and  then  came  the  appearance  to  the  peo- 
ple in  an  airing ;  and  on  other  days,  the  going  down  to  the  House 
of  Lords.  Elsewhere  were  the  Italian  witnesses  —  guarded  like 
a  gang  of  criminals  as  they  went  to  and  fro  ;  pelted  and  groaned 
at  wherever  they  were  seen  ;  driven  fast  to  back-doors  of  the 
House  of  Lords,  and  pushed  in,  as  for  their  lives.  Within  the 
House,  there  was  the  earnest  atteniion  of  the  Lords  to  the  sum- 
ming up  of  the  Solicitor-General  (Copley),  previous  to  the  produc- 
tion of  the  witnesses,  the  rushing  out  to  see  the  eclipse  when  the 
pith  and  marrow  of  the  master  were  d  sposed  of,  and  the  rushing 
back  presently  during  the  mingling  of  his  voice  at  the  close  with 
the  sound  of  •'  the  drums  and  flourish,  announcing  the  Queen's 
arrival;"  and  then,  the  reception  of  her  majesty,  all  standing  as 
she  entered  and  took  her  seat,  as  hitherto,  on  "  the  crimson  chair 
of  state,  three  feet  from  the  bar ;  "  2  and  then  the  swearing  in  of 
the  interpreter,  and  the  introduction  of  the  first  witness  —  at 
whose  entrance  the  Queen  was  looking  another  way,  but  on  per- 
ceiving whom,  she  uttered  an  inarticulate  exclamation,  and  has- 
tily retired.3  She  had  nothing  to  fear  from  this  witness,  how- 
ever ;  for  his  evidence  was,  on  the  face  of  it,  so  ludicrously  un- 
trustworthy, that  his  name,  Majocchi,  became  a  joke  throughout 
the  country.  The  poor  wretch  was  an  admirable  theme  for  the 
mob  outside,  in  the  intervals  between  their  exhortations  to  the 
guards,  and  the  peers,  and  all  who  passed  to  the  House,  to  "  re- 
member their  Queen,"  ''  remember  their  sisters,"  their  *'  wives," 
their  •'  daughters."  4  Then  there  was  the  perplexity  of  under- 
lings how  to  act.  The  sentinels  at  Carlton  Palace,  "  after  a 
momentary  pause,  presented  arms,"  as  her  majesty's  carriage 
passed;  ''the  soldiers  at  the  Treasury  did  not.''5  Daily  was 
the  fervent  "God  bless  her!"  repeated  ten  thousand  times, 
from  the  nearest  house-top  to  the  furthest  point  of  vision ; 
and  daily  did  the  accused  appear  "  exhausted  i>y  fatigue  and 
anxiety,"6  on  returning  from  hearing,  or  beins;  informed  of, 
the  disgusting  charges,  the  time  for  replying  to  which  had 
uot  yet  arrived.  Those  who  remember  that  July  and  Au- 
gust, when  men's  minds  were  fevered  with  passion  or  enthusiasm, 
and  the  thermometer  was  ranging  from  80°  to  90"  in  the  shade,7 
can  always  be  eloquent  about  the  summer  of  1820. 

l  Annual  Register,  1820.     Chron.  p.  245.  2  H>id.     Chron.  p  382. 

8  Ibid.     Appendix,  p.  986.  *  Ibid,     fhrivn.  p.  380. 

6  Ibid.     Chron.  p.  381.        6  Ibid.     Chron.  p.  383.         ?  Ibid.    Chron.  p.  245. 


CHAP.  II.]  ABANDONMENT   OF   THE  BILL.  285 

On  the  9th  of  September,  her  majesty's  counsel  appl'ed  for 
and  obtained  an  adjournment  to  Tuesday,  the  3d  of  The  defence 
October.  The  defence  consisted  of  attempts,  generally  Octobers, 
successful,  to  overthrow  the  credit  of  the  witnesses  against  the 
accused,  and  in  bringing  forward  testimony  in  favor  of  her  con- 
duct and  manners  while  abroad.  On  the  2d  of  November,  the 
arguments  of  counsel  on  both  sides  being  concluded,  the  Lords 
proceeded  to  discuss  the  question  of  the  second  reading  of  the 
Bill  of  Pains  and  Penalties.  The  division  was  taken  on  Mon- 
day the  6th,  when  the  majority  in  favor  of  the  second  reading 
was  only  28,  in  a  House  of  '21 8.1  On  the  third  reading,  which 
took  place  four  days  afterwards,  the  majority  was  reduced  to 
9.-  Such  a  result  in  this  Mouse,  the  stronghold  of  ministerial 
power,  at  once  showed  the  government  that  it  must  yield  ;  and 
that  it  would  yield,  ''considering  the  state  of  public  feeling,  and 
the  d  vision  of  semiment  just  evinced  by  their  lordships."  Lord 
Liverpool  announced  on  the  spot.  The  King's  ministers  had 
come  to  the  determination  not  to  proceed  further  with  the 
measure.8 

The  joy  which  spread  through  the  country  with  the  news  of 
the  abandonment  of  the  bill  was  beyond  the  scope  of 
record.  Among  the  generality  of  persons,  who  did  moot  of  aw 
not  look  beyond  the  interest  of  the  particular  case,  the  bin.  Novem- 
e-cape  of  the  Queen  was  a  matter  of  congratulation  ; 
but  to  this,  persons  of  more  reflection  and  a  more  comprehensive 
knowledge  added  a  deeper  joy.  They  felt  as  Lord  Erskine  did 
when  he  burst  forth  with  his  rejoicings,  on  the  announcement  of 
the  abandonment  of  the  bill  :4  "  My  life,  whether  it  has  been  for 
good  or  for  evil,  has  been  passed  under  the  sacred  rule  of  the  law. 
In  this  moment  I  feel  my  strength  renovated  by  that  rule  being 
restored.  The  accursed  change  wherewithal  we  had  been  men- 
aced has  passed  over  our  heads.  There  is  an  end  of  that  horrid 
and  portentous  excrescence  of  a  new  law,  retrospective,  iniqui- 
tou-,  and  oppressive  ;  and  the  constitution  and  scheme  of  our 
polity  is  once  more  safe.  My  heart  is  too  full  of  the  escape  we 
have  just  had,  to  let  me  do  more  than  praise  the  blessings  of  the 
system  we  have  regained."  In  the  midst  of  the  enthusiasm,  the 
law-othYers  of  the  Queen  became  the  idols  of  the  nation.  The  Queen's 
In  the  face  of  the  world,  they  were  the  champions  of  law-officers. 
an  oppressed  woman  ;  and  the  thoughtful  saw  in  them  also  the 
defenders  of  the  constitution  which  the  Lord  Chancellor  was 
daily  talking  about,  but  iv>t  at  ibis  time  taking  the  best  care  of; 
the  defenders  of  the  dignity  of  law  which,  as  Mr.  Ward  said 
on  the  present  occasion,5  "  outsteps  its  just  functions  when  it 


Hansard,  iii.  p.  1698.  2  n,i,i.  p  1744  8  n,id.  p.  1746 

Ibid.  p.  1747.  6  Lord  Dudley's  Letters,  p.  265. 


286  HISTORY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [BOOK  H. 

interferes  to  punish  misconduct"  —  granting  the  guilt,  for  argu- 
ment's sake  —  "  that  has  been  provoked  by  outrage,  and  facili- 
tated by  neglect."  And  nowhere  could  there  be  a  difference  of 
opin:on  about  the  disinterestedness  and  courage  of  Mr.  Brougham 
and  Mr.  Denman.  Friend  and  foe  could  not  but  s«-e  how  they 
exposed  themselves  to  the  displeasure  of  the  court  and  govern- 
ment, and  to  all  the  consequences  of  that  displeasure,  for  a  term 
too  long  for  calculation.  There  appeared  every  probability  that 
they  would  suffer  professionally  for  their  advocacy  of  the  Queen's 
cause,  through  the  present  reign,  and  the  one  which  was  to  suc- 
ceed ;  for  the  Dukes  of  York  and  Clarence  voted  for  the  bill 
throughout  its  course.  It  is  a  cheering  fact  in  human  life  that 
the  oppressed,  when  once  his  grief  is  known,  never  has  to  wait 
long  for  a  champion.  The  work  has  never  to  wait  for  the  work- 
man, in  the  case  of  the  defence  of  helplessness,  any  more  than  in 
other  matters.  And  the  honor  due  in  each  instance  is  not  the 
less  for  the  certainty  that  it  will  be  claimed.  These  jrentlemen 
suffered  as  they  expected  to  do  —  suffered  a  long  delay  of  their 
professional  advancement  and  rewards ;  but  they  were  not  men 
who,  in  a  free  country,  could  be  kept  down  by  royal  or  official 
discountenance  ;  and  they  received  first  the  esteem  and  gratitude 
of  the  nation,  and  finally,  the  prizes  of  their  profession.  The 
occasion  was  one  which,  by  its  appeal  to  their  highest  feelings, 
could  not  but  rouse  their  intellectual  powers  to  the  fullest  ac- 
tion ;  and  both  of  them  surpassed  all  expectation  in  the  conduct 
of  the  business.  "  The  display  of  his  power  and  fertility  of  mind 
in  this  business,"  says  Mr.  Ward  of  Mr.  Brougham,1  "  has  been 
quite  amazing;  and  these  extraordinary  efforts  seem  to  cost  him 
nothing." 

Three  nights  of  illumination  in  London,  sanctioned  by  the 
lord  mayor,  followed  the  announcement  of  the  triumph  of  the 
Queen's  cause.2  Prince  Leopold,  the  son-in-law  of  both  the  royal 
parties,  ordered  Marlborouzh  House  to  be  illuminated ;  and  no 
abode  shone  more  brightly.  The  witnesses  for  the  prosecution 
were  burned  in  effigy  in  the  streets ;  and  there  was  some  mob- 
bing of  the  newspaper  offices  which  had  taken  the  government  side 
in  the  question  ;  but  there  was  no  serious  breach  of  the  peace. 

On  the  23d,  the  Queen  sent  down  a  message  8  to  the  House  of 
Prorogation,  Commons,  which  Mr.  Denman  had  begun  to  read, 
NOY.  23.  when  he  was  stopped  by  the  summons  to  the  Commons 
to  attend  the  House  of  Lords,  which  preceded  the  prorogation  of 
parliament.  The  con'ents  of  the  message  were  of  course  made 
known.  Her  majesty  had  declined  offers  of  money  and  a  resi- 
dence, made  by  the  government  since  the  dropp.ng  of  the  prose- 

»  Lord  Dudley's  Letters,  p.  268. 

a  Annual  Register,  1820.     Chron.  p.  487.  «  Hansard,  iii.  p.  1750. 


CIIAP.  II.J     THE  QUEEN'S   CLAIM  TO  BE  CROWNED.       287 

cution ;  and  she  commended  herself  to  the  House  of  Commons, 
for  a  due  provision,  and  for  protection,  in  case  of  a  resumption, 
under  some  other  form,  of  the  proceedings  against  her,  —  an  event 
strongly  apprehended  by  herself  and  by  some  others  more  fitted 
to  exercise  a  cool  judgment. 

Addresses  were  presented  to  the  Queen,  from  all  parts  of  the 
country,  and  almost  all  descriptions  of  people.  On  the  29th 
of  November  she  went  in  procession  to  St.  Paul's,1  Queen  goes 
to  return  thanks  for  her  deliverance  from  a  great  tost-pauls 
peril  and  affliction.  Her  reception  was  everything  that  could 
be  wished,  as  far  as  the  conduct  of  the  vast  multitude  was 
concerned ;  and  they  did  honor  to  her  by  the  utmost  propriety  of 
bearing;  but,  within  the  cathedral,  we  stumble  upon  an  incident 
characteristic  of  that  time,  but  scarcely  credible  in  ours.  "  In  the 
general  '  thanksgiving,'  the  officiating  clergyman,  Mr.  Hayes, 
one  of  the  minor  canons  of  St.  Paul's,  omitted  the  particular 
thanksgiving  which,  at  the  request  of  any  parishioner,  it  is  cus- 
tomary to  offer  up,  and  which  it  was  understood  her  majesty  de- 
sired might  be  offered  up  for  her  on  the  present  occasion.  It  is 
said  that  Mr.  Hayes  refused,  on  the  ground  that  the  rubric  directs 
that  those  may  be  named  as  returning  thanks  who  have  been  pre- 
viously prayed  for ;  but  that  the  Queen,  not  having  been  prayed 
for,  could  not  be  named  in  the  thanksgiving."  2  Thus,  the  same 
interdict  which  deprived  her  of  the  prayers  of  the  nation,  wrought 
to  prevent  her  from  returning  thanks,  —  a  privilege  which  is 
commonly  supposed  to  be  the  right  of  every  worshipper  within 
the  Christian  pale. 

The  life  of  this  unhappy  lady  offers  but  little  more  for  record  ; 
for  the  life  itself  was  drawing  to  a  close.  When  parliament  met 
again,  the  time  of  the  nation  was  largely  occupied,8  and  its  tem- 
per tried,  by  discussions  on  the  Queen's  affairs,  caused  by  her 
continued  exclusion  from  public  prayers,  and  by  recriminations 
on  the  inexhaustible  subject  of  last  year's  prosecution.  An  an- 
nuity of  50,000/.  was  provided  for  her,  by  act  of  parliament; 
and  some  attemps  were  made  to  obtain  for  her  a  share  in  the 
honors  of  the  ensuing  coronation.  It  was  natural  that  one  so 
long  an  outcast,  and  at  length  borne  back  into  social  lite  by  the 
sympathies  of  a  nation,  should  accept  too  much  from  those  sym- 
pathies, and  fail  to  stop  at  the  right  point  in  her  demands.  It 
would  have  been  well  if  the  Queen  had  retired  into  silence  after 
the  grant  of  her  annuity,  and  the  final  refusal  to  insert  her  name 
in  the  liturgy.  Her  demand  to  be  crowned  witli  the  Queen's 
King  was,  besides  being  properly  untenable,  far  from  crowned,** 
prudent  in  regard  to  herself,  or  humane  towards  the  July,  1S21. 

1  Annual  Register,  1820.     Chron.  p.  503. 

2  Ibid.    Chron.  p.  505.  8  Hansard,  ir. 


288  HISTORY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [BOOK  H. 

King.  He  could  not  meet  her  under  such  circumstances ;  and 
the  being  crowned  was  not  essential  to  her  womanly  honor,  which 
was  now  as  much  vindicated  and  protected  as  it  could  ever  be. 
Whether  the  claim  to  be  crowned  was  or  was  not  a  false  step  in 
prudence  and  tas:e,  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  endeavor  to 
obtain  an  entrance  to  the  Abbey,  to  witness  the  ceremony,  was  a 
mistake.  The  Queen  was  fairly  turned  away  from  the  door, 
amidst  contending  ut'erances  of  derision,  sympathy,  and  indigna- 
tion at  the  exclusion.1  It  was  a  piteous  sight  ;  the  personages 
"  on  the  leads,"  "  i  M  grotesque  dresses,"  drawn  out  of  the  proces- 
sion to  see  the  transaction  :  and  the  "  fashionable  ladies,''  all  with 
tickets,  no  one  stopping  to  offer  hers  to  the  pausing  Queen,  but 
all  hurrying  on.  "  without  taking  the  slightest  notice  of  her ; " 
the  people  below,  meantime,  shouting  her  name  '•  with  great  en- 
thusiasm." 

This  was  the  last  time  of  her  giving  trouble  to  her  enemies,  or 
perplexity  to  the  fashionable  who  crossed  her  path,  or  smiles  to 
the  people  whose  hearts  warmed  towards  her.  She  must  have 
been  often  and  long,  if  not  perpetually,  since  the  accession  of  the 
King,  in  a  fever  of  spirits  which  could  not  but  wear  her  frame. 
The  tension  of  mind  which  she  had  now  long  undergone  would 
have  crazed  most  women,  and  could  not  be  forever  sustained 
even  by  one  of  "so  little  substance  "  and  so  much  versatility  as, 
following  Lord  Malmesbury's  testimony  to  her  early  character, 
we  may  attribute  to  her  still.  Her  mort  fication  at  the  Abbey 
door  happened  on  the  19th  of  July  ;  on  the  2d  of  August  a  bul- 
letin was  issued,"2  which  showed  that  she  was  seriously  ill  of  in- 
Qneen's  ternal  inflammation.  She  was  in  no  condition  to  contend 
death.  An-  with  disease,  and,  on  the  7th,  she  sank.  It  is  testified 
gust  i,  1821.  t^at  gjie  ^j^  w;tn  a  mournful  earnestness,  on  that  last 

day,  that  she  had  no  wish  to  live : 3  "I  do  not  know  whether  I 
shall  have  to  suffer  bodily  pain  in  dying;  but  I  shall  quit  life 
without  any  regret."  No  wonder !  And  who  could  wish  that 
she  should  live  ?  At  the  best,  her  future  years  must  have  been 
forlorn.  Supposing  her  conduct,  and  that  of  the  people  towai-ds 
her,  to  have  been  all  that  could  be  wished,  to  the  end  of  a  long 
life,  she  would  still  have  been  a  desolate  being.  To  a  woman  it 
can  never  be  enough  to  be  a  queen —  much  less  to  be  a  nominal 
queen,  under  perpetual  solicitude  for  the  very  name.  That  her 
long  home  opened  to  her  thus  early  was  an  event  of  comfort  to 
those  who  knew  she  could  never  have  any  other  home,  or  any 
natural  work  or  food  for  her  domestic  affections.  Yet  the  news 
of  her  death  — joyful  enough  to  her  husband,  who  was  on  a 
pleasure-trip  at  the  time  —  spread  mourning  over  the  land  ;  and 

i  Annual  Register,  1821.     Appendix,  p.  348. 

a  Ibid.    Chron.  p.  118,  8  Ibid.    Chron.  p.  121. 


CHAP.  H-l     THE   QUEEN'S  DEATH  AND  FUNERAL.  289 

a  countless  multitude  thronged  to  her  funeral-procession.  There 
were  some  riots  on  this  occasion,  caused  by  the  de-  Queen's 
termination  of  the  people  to  have  the  hearse  pass  faneral- 
through  the  city ;  a  point  which  they  gained  after  some  conflict 
with  the  soldiers,1  during  which  two  men  were  killed  by  shots 
from  the  horse-guards  on  duty.  After  the  lord  mayor  quitted 
the  head  of  the  procession,  outside  the  city,  the  funeral  company 
proceeded  quietly  enough  to  Harwich,  where  the  body  was  imme- 
diately embarked  for  Stade,  on  its  way  to  Brunswick.  Times 
had  changed  since  she  arrived  at  the  shores  whence  she  thus 
departed  ;  arrived,  "  vastly  happy  with  her  future  expectations," 
with  her  prince's  portrait  in  her  bosom,  and  a  place  on  the  great- 
est throne  in  the  world  within  her  view.  She  had  soon  found 
her  prince  "  not  nearly  so  good-looking  as  his  picture  ;"  and  she 
found  tlie  same  thing  in  regard  to  the  "  prospects  "  about  which 
she  had  been  so  "  vastly  happy."  For  her  the  grave  could  never 
open  untimely ;  and  we  see  it  open,  as  she  did,  "  without  any 
regret,"  though  not  without  sadness.  She  had  just  entered  her 
fifty-third  year. 

We  have  finished  the  story  of  Queen  Caroline  at  once,  that 
we  might  not  have  to  recur  to  it,  with  pain,  at  intervals.  We 
must  now  revert  to  the  beginning  of  the  year,  and  the  early 
transactions  of  the  new  reign. 

l  Annual  Register.    Chrou.  p.  127. 


19 


HISTORY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [BOOK  U 


CHAPTER  HI. 

Ox  occasion  of  the  death  of  a  sovereign,  it  is  usual  for  the 
parliament  —  which  may  remain  in  existence  for  six  months,  if 
the  new  King  so  please  —  to  provide  for  the  civil  list,  and  all  the 
exigencies  of  government  during  the  coming  elections,  and  then 
be  dissolved.  On  the  death  of  George  III.,  there  was  some 
anxious  questioning  as  to  what  should  be  done,  on  account  of  the 
peculiar  condition  of  affairs.  The  time  of  parliament  had,  thus 
far  in  the  session,  been  almost  wholly  occupied  with  legislating 
against  the  disaffected ;  and  the  business  of  the  country  remained 
to  be  done.  It  could  hardly  be  gone  through  during  the  six 
months  ;  and  a  six  months'  canvass  for  the  elections  would  be  a 
serious  evil  to  the  country.  It  was  clenrly  convenient,  therefore, 
that,  as  the  King's  speech  declared,  there  should  be  a  new  par- 
liament called  without  delay.  But  the  King  and  government 
wanted  money,  and  supplies  must  be  voted  immediately ;  or  these 
matters  of  the  purse  would  be  subject  to  the  dictation  of  the 
people  at  the  elections.  The  Commons  voted  the  supplies  ;  the 
Lords  acquiesced  in  the  vote,  expressly  dispensing  with  the  act 
of  parliament  properly  necessary  on  such  an  occasion.  Two 
other  subjects  were  discussed :  the  position  of  the  Queen,  and 
the  issue  of  writs  to  four  boroughs,  against  which  gross  corrup- 
tion had  been  proved.  Lord  J.  Russell  carried  through  the 
Commons  a  bill  to  prevent  the  issue  of  writs  to  these  four  bor- 
oughs of  Grampound,  Penryn,  Barnstaple,  and  Camelford.1 
The  bill  was  lost,  by  a  majority  of  eleven,  in  the  Upper  House  ; 
but  the  incident  shows  that  the  question  of  parliamentary  reform 
.  was,  by  this  time,  able  to  command  attention  in  the 
of  partial  most  critical  seasons.  On  the  28th  of  February  the 
ML  iffln"™11  parliaraent  was  prorogued,  to  be  dissolved  on  the  13th 
Newpariia-  °^  March;  on  the  21st  of  April  the  new  parliament 
ment,  April  assembled  to  be  sworn  in ;  and  on  the  27th  the  King 
opened  the  session  in  person. 

His  speech  acquiesced  in  economy,  and  declared  his  content- 
King's  ment  with  the  settlement  of  1816,  rather  than  that 
any  addition  should  be  made  to  the  popular  burdens. 

1  Anaual  Register,  1820.  p.  23. 


CHAP.  III.]  DEATH  OF  GRATTAN.  291 

This  sounded  well,  as  the  Lord  Chancellor  anticipated,  in  a 
letter  written  the  day  before,  that  it  would :  "  I  think  now  the 
speech,  in  which  he  will  disavow  wishing  lor  any  increase,  will 
make  him  popular ;  and,  if  times  mend,  will  give  him  better 
chance  of  a  fair  increase  of  income  than  anything  else  could  give 
him." 1  This  declaration,  however,  was  obtained  with  difficulty, 
from  a  prince  who  was  always  in  pressing  need  of  money. 
'•  Our  royal  master  seems  to  have  got  into  temper  again,"  says 
the  above  letter  ;  "  he  has  been  pretty  well  disposed  to  part  with 
us  all,  because  we  would  not  make  additions  to  his  revenue." 

The  ministers  might  well,  indeed,  refuse  "  to  oppress  the  coun- 
try at  present,  by  additional  taxation,  for  this  purpose."  state  of  the 
The  country  was  in  no  state  to  be  trifled  with  ;  and  county- 
if  the  King  hud  dismissed  his  ministers,  he  could  hardly  have 
found  others  who  could  have  promised  him  an*  increase  of 
income.  The  social  disorders,  which  had  been  occasioned  by 
poverty,  were  in  course  of  treatment  by  the  harshest  methods 
the  constitution  could  be  made  to  yield  or  countenance.  The 
distress  remained ;  and  the  agricultural  complainants  themselves 
declared  that  they  did  not  seek  relief  at  the  expense  of  the 
manufacturing  and  commercial  classes,  who  were  as  sorely  tried 
as  themselves.  The  jails  were  full  of  '•  Radicals  ;  "  prosecutions 
for  high  treason,  sedition,  libel,  and  blasphemy,  were  going  for- 
ward all  over  the  country,  keeping  up  the  disloyal  and  defiant 
action  of  men's  minds  ;  the  Queen  was  hastening  home  to  take 
refuge  among  the  people,  from  the  persecution  of  their  rulers ; 
men  were  hanged  in  rows,  under  a  criminal  law  whose  severity 
was  now  a  common  topic  of  discussion  in  the  legislature  itself; 
and,  in  this  posture  of  affairs,  the  temper  of  the  nation  was  not 
the  blandest.  It  was  good  enough  to  let  the  elections  pass  over 
without  violence  ;  but  not  so  easy  as  to  bear  any  proposal  for 
increasing  the  royal  income  ;  so  the  King  had  to  get ''  into  tem- 
per again,"  and  keep  his  ministers. 

The  parliament  returned,  amidst  all  this  turmoil  and  distress, 
differed  little  in  its  composition  from  the  last ;  if  anything,  the 
administration  rather  gained  strength  in  it.  In  its  first  days,  it 
lost  one  of  its  chief  ornaments.  Mr.  Grattan  had  Death  of 
come  up  to  parliament  again,  on  behalf  of  the  Cath-  Grattiin- 
olics,  though  his  infirmities  rendered  him  unfit  for  public  service. 
He  arrived  in  London  ill;  never  again  entered  the  House;  and 
told  a  deputation,  who  waited  on  him  in  May,  that  they  would 
see  him  no  more.  He  was  then  "  in  the  lowest  state  of  physical 
exhaustion  ; "  made  a  vain  effort  to  rise ;  and  here  closed  the 
efforts  of  a  long  and  honest  political  life,  dying  on  the  4th  of 
June,  after  having  spent  forty-five  years  in  the  public  service. 
1  Life  of  Lord  Eldon,  ii.  p.  363. 


292  HISTORY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [BOOK  II. 

He  was  missed  and  regretted,  not  only  as  a  faithful  patriot  and 
an  able  man,  but  as  the  last  of  the  band  of  orators  bequeathed 
by  the  previous  century  to  the  present  —  the  last  of  the  extraor- 
dinary group  of  whom  Pitt  and  Fox  were  the  prominent 
members. 

During  this  session,  when  many  subjects  of  great  and  grow- 
ing interest  were  brought  forward  —  some  in  regular  course,  and 
some  in  consequence  of  the  distress  of  the  times  —  one  mighty  plea 
was  urged,  which  some  hearers  thought  irrelevant  to  the  business 
of  the  time,  while  wiser  men  saw  its  close  connection  with  every 
form  of  popular  misery  and  national  difficulty.  This  session  was 
distinguished  by  Mr.  Brougham's  motion  and  speech 
on  behalf  of  national  education.  Mr.  Ward  might  well 
speak  of  Mr.  Brougham's  capacity  for  labor  and  versatility  of 
powers.  On»  the  24th  of  June,1  Mr.  Lambton  withdrew  his 
notice  of  motion  on  parliamentary  reform,  for  the  27th,  on  the 
ground  that  a  subject  so  important  could  not  be  properly  attended 
to  by  the  House  or  the  country  at  a  time  when  the  Queen's 
business  would  engross  all  minds.  Mr.  Brougham  then  observed, 
that,  standing  in  the  same  situation  with  regard  to  his  motion  on 
national  education,  he  should  not  withdraw  it,  as  parliament  and 
the  country  could  have  nothing  more  important  to  attend  to. 
"  By  the  production  of  the  plan  which  he  was  about  to  submit 
to  parliament,  he  trusted  that  he  should  put  it  in  the  power  of 
the  House  to  do  a  benefit  to  mankind,  which  would  exist  and  be 
widely  felt  long  after  that  question  —  the  Queen's  business  — 
should  have  been  determined ;  and  long  after  the  differences 
which  existed  between  individuals,  illustrious  as  they  were,  who 
were  more  immediately  connected  with  it,  should  have  been  for- 
gotten." On  the  28th  of  June  2  was  brought  forward  the  first 
comprehensive  and  definite  proposal  for  the  education  of  the  peo- 
ple of  Great  Britain.  As  has  been  recorded  in  a  previous  page,8 
an  education  committee  had  been  sitting  since  1816,  by  whose 
labors  a  great  mass  of  valuable  information  —  of  moral  statistics 
—  had  been  collected  and  made  available ;  and  Mr.  Brougham 
had,  at  that  time,  declared  his  intention  of  bringing  forward  a 
scheme  of  popular  education  for  London,  under  parliamentary 
sanction  and  control,  before  attempting  to  diffuse  instruction  over 
the  whole  country.  In  his  present  move,  he  said  nothing  of  this 
former  intention,  but  proposed  a  plan  for  the  education  of  the 
entire  population  of  "  the  poor  in  England  and  Wales." 

The  plan  proposed  by  Mr.  Brougham  was  never  adopted ;  but 

the  movement  was  not  lost.     No  plan  of  general  education  of  the 

poor  has  yet  been  adopted,  and  it  is  still  impossible  to  see  when 

such  an  event  will  happen ;  but  the  facts  obtained  and  made  known, 

1  Hansard,  i.  p.  1319.  a  ibid.  ii.  p.  49.  s  Book  i.  p.  100. 


CHAP.  III.J  POPULAR  EDUCATION.  293 

the  attention  excited,  the  conviction  of  the  necessity  of  education 
produced  in  a  multitude  of  minds,  which  yet  cannot  agree  to  any 
scheme  hitherto  brought  forward,  have  been,  in  themselves,  a  sort 
of  education,  in  preparation  for  a  higher  and  a  better;  and  these 
date  from  Mr.  Brougham's  efforts  in  1816  and  1820.  If  we  have 
still  too  many  marks  instead  of  signatures,  in  parish  registers,  the 
proportion  is  much  smaller  than  it  was  ;  if  we  still  find  old  gen- 
tlemen, here  and  there,  who  exhort  against  the  "  over-instruction  of 
the  people,"  and  ladies  who  refuse  to  take  domestic  servants  who 
can  read  and  write,  we  rarely  meet,  in  towns  and  in  ordinary 
middle-class  society,  with  those  alarms  about  the  effect  of  the 
alphabet  and  the  inkhorn  upon  the  poor,  which  were  common 
when  Mr.  Brougham  rose  to  plead  their  cause. 

According  to  his  statement,  the  children  requiring  means  of 
education  were  about  one  tenth  of  the  whole  population  in  Eng- 
land ;  whereas  those  provided  with  any  means  of  education  at 
all  were  only  one  sixteenth  (according  to  the  most  recent  census, 
it  was  one  seventeenth)  ;  and  if  the  number  was  deducted  of 
those  who  received  merely  a  decent  training  in  regard  to  habits, 
which  was  all  that  dame-schools  and  other  inferior  schools  could 
afford,  the  amount  of  effectual  teaching  would  be  found  to  be 
indeed  miserably  small.  Large  districts  were  destitute  of  all 
means  of  instruction  whatever ;  in  others,  the  Sunday-schools 
of  the  Dissenters,  who  had  carried  out  the  plan  of  Sunday- 
schools  much  more  vigorously  than  the  Church,  were  the  only 
reliance ;  and,  good  as  are  the  principle  and  plan,  no  weekly 
meetings  for  instruction  can  ever  impart  any  considerable  amount 
of  knowledge,  or  supply  the  place  of  that  training  of  intellect 
and  habits  which  is  a  main  element  in  what  is  called  edu- 
cation. 

The  information  obtained  by  the  education  committee  was 
altogether  from  clergymen  of  the  Established  Church  ;  and  Mr. 
Brougham's  plan  provided  for  the  schoolmasters  being  all  mem- 
bers of  that  church  ;  for  their  being  elected  on  the  recommenda- 
tion of  clergymen,  together  with  that  of  resident  householders; 
and  for  tlu-ir  qualification  for  the  office,  by  taking  the  sacrament 
within  a  month  of  their  appointment.  These  were  proposals 
which  could  not  be  acceded  to  by  Dissenters ;  and  which,  there- 
fore, necessitated  the  rejection  of  the  scheme.  No  scheme  of  pop- 
ular education  can  ever  become  national,  in  this  country,  which 
gives  the  management  of  schools  and  the  appointment  of  masters 
to  the  Church,  while  Dissenters  constitute  a  large  proportion  of 
the  inhabitants  in  almost  every  district,  and  especially  in  the  most 
populous,  where  the  Dissenters  bear  their  full  share  in  such  edu- 
cation as  already  exists.  This  difficulty  was  immediately  fatal 
to  the  measure,  and  has  been  so  to  every  scheme  proposed  through 


294  HISTOEY   OF  THE  PEACE.  [BOOK  IL 

succeeding  years ;  the  members  of  the  Established  Church  insist- 
ing on  direct  religious  instruction,  as  a  part  of  the  plan  ;  and  the 
Dissenters  refusing  either  to  subject  their  children  to  the  relig- 
ious instruction  of  the  Church,  or  to  pay  for  a  system  from  which 
their  children  are  necessarily  excluded.  Whenever  all  parties 
shall  consent  to  establish  a  system  of  secular  instruction,  provid- 
ing for  the  religious  training  to  be  carried  on  in  perfect  freedom 
by  the  clergy  and  ministers  of  the  respective  denominations,  the 
nation  may  enjoy  a  scheme  of  general  education ;  but,  evidently, 
not  till  then.  Mr.  Brougham's  measure  was  dropped,  after  the 
first  reading  of  the  bill ;  but  it  answered  a  great  purpose  in  rous- 
ing the  mind  of  the  nation  to  the  most  important  subject  which 
could  occupy  it ;  and  it  will  ever  remain  memorable  as  the  first 
express  move  towards  the  greatest  achievement  which  still 
remains  to  be  effected.  This  session  was,  the  while,  affording 
evidence  of  the  need  of  popular  enlightenment,  and  of  the  edu- 
cational training  which  is  afforded  by  the  free  discussion  of  social 
interests.  We  find  petitions  presented,  from  country  districts, 
complaining  of  the  operation  of  machinery  in  throwing  people  out 
of  work  ;  and,  on  the  other  hand,  a  large  number  of  petitions  in 
favor  of  an  extension  of  freedom  of  trade. 

Something  was  gained  this  year,  in  the  direction  of  a  diminu- 
Capitai  pun-  tion  of  capital  punishment,  by  Sir  James  Mackintosh's 
isijjnent.  success,  in  carrying  three  bills  out  of  six  which  he 
brought  forward  in  the  place  of  the  lamented  Sir  S.  Romilly. 
By  the  passage  of  these  bills,  shoplifting  to  the  value  of  five  shil- 
lings ceased  to  be  punishable  with  death  —  great  as  was  the  Lord 
Chancellor's  apprehension,  that,  by  this  relaxation,  small  trades- 
men would  be  ruined,  in  the  face  of  the  clearest  evidence  that  the 
severity  of  the  law  caused  that  offence  to  go  almost  invariably 
unpunished.  There  is  something  amu>ing,  and  certainly  instruc- 
tive, in  looking  back,  after  a  few  years,  upon  the  records  of  the 
fears  of  legislators.  Lord  Redesdale  was,  on  this  occasion,1 
alarmed  at  the  proposal  that  men  should  no  longer  be  put  to 
death  for  blackening  their  faces  in  the  commission  of  theft  by 
night.  The  offence  of  stealing  game  and  other  articles  by  night 
remained  punishable  by  fine  and  transportation ;  it  was  proposed 
to  repeal  that  portion  of  the  Black  Act  by  which  night  thefts, 
with  blackened  faces,  were  made  punishable  with  death.  Lord 
Redesdale  told  of  the  tax  he  and  his  neighbors  had  to  pay  — 
200/.  a  year,  for  a  police  of  six  men  —  to  check  deer-stealing  on 
the  borders  of  the  forest ;  and  he  declared  his  fear  that  if  men, 
already  deer-stealers,  were  no  longer  to  be  hanged  for  blackening 
their  faces,  "  the  practice  among  these  depredators  would  be  uni- 
versally resorted  to."  He  was  supported  by  the  Lord  Chancellor, 
1  Hansard,  ii.  p.  494, 


CHAP.  III.]  AGRICULTURAL  DISTRESS.  295 

who  actually  succeeded  in  throwing  out  that  clause  of  the  bill. 
From  this  time  forward,  however,  it  was  no  longer  a  capital 
offence  for  an  Egyptian  to  remain  one  year  in  the  country ;  for 
a  notorious  thief  to  reside  in  Northumberland  or  Cumberland ; 
for  any  one  to  be  found  disguised  in  the  Mint,  or  to  injure  West- 
minster Bridge.  The  vagrant  laws  were  now  to  be  supposed 
severe  enough  for  gypsies ;  and  the  laws  which  protected  the 
southtrn  counties  to  be  sufficient  for  the  northern.  By  the  third 
of  the  successful  bills,  which  was  carried  with  some  mutilation, 
several  offences  —  some  serious,  and  some  no  more  so  than  the 
wounding  of  cattle  and  the  sending  threatening  letters  —  were 
reduced  from  capital  to  simple  felonies.  But  in  no  case  were  the 
offences  of  stealing  on  navigable  rivers,  and  even  the  lighter  kinds 
of  forgery,  permitted  to  be  visited  with  punishment  short  of 
death.1  The  bills  regarding  these  crimes  were  necessarily  with- 
drawn ;  no  further  advance  was  made,  for  some  sessions,  in  sub- 
stituting mildt-r  punishments  for  that  of  death.  Sir  James  Mack- 
intosh continued  his  efforts,  year  by  year ;  but  could  only  work 
out  some  preparation  for  future  success.  In  his  attempt  in  re- 
gard to  forgery,  in  the  session  of  1821,  he  committed  a  mis- 
chievous oversight  in  inserting  the  forgery  of  Bank  of  England 
notes  among  those  which  were  to  remain  punishable  with  death, 
as  the  forgeries  of  wills,  transfers  of  stock,  and  marriage  registers 
and  licenses.  He  yielded  this  point,  on  the  ground  of  the  seri- 
ousness of  the  offence  of  forging  bank-notes  ;  but  he  thus  gave 
up  the  strong  ground  that  the  capital  punishment  was  less  ef- 
fective than  a  milder  one  for  the  prevention  of  the  offence,  and 
enabled  his  opponents  to  regard  him  as  considering  the  severer 
punishment  the  best  for  its  object.  All  that  was  gained  for  three 
years  was  a  pledge  from  the  House  of  Commons  in  the  session 
of  1822  :2  ''That  this  House  will,  at  an  early  period  of  the  next 
session  of  parliament,  take  into  their  most  serious  consideration 
the  means  of  increasing  the  efficacy  of  the  criminal  laws,  by  abat- 
ing their  undue  rigor."  This  resolution  was  adopted  by  a  major- 
ity of  16,  in  a  House  of  218  ;  and  the  "  loud  cheers  "  which  fol- 
lowed the  announcement  excited  much  expectation  throughout 
the  country,  as  to  the  fidelity  with  which  the  Commons  would 
redeem  their  pledge  on  the  arrival  of  the  session  of  1 823. 

The  restlessness  of  the  country  under  "  agricultural  distress  " 
was  in  these  days  a  perpetual,  as  commercial  distress  Agricultural 
was  a  frequently  recurring  evil.  Jt  might  really  puz-  d»stress- 
zle  a  visitant  from  another  hemisphere  to  understand  how  it 
could  be  that,  with  regard  to  an  article  of  the  first  necessity  — 
an  article  inevitably  produced,  because  inevitably  consumed  — 
the  producers  should  be,  for  long  courses  of  years,  distressed  and 
l  Hansard,  i.  p.  1338.  2  Ibid.  vii.  p.  805, 


296  HISTORY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [BOOK  IL 

impoverished.  "  From  the  commencement  of  the  session  of  par- 
liament (1820),1  numerous  petitions  on  the  subject  of  the  existing 
agricultural  distress  had  been  presented  to  the  House,  stating  in 
strong  language  the  extent  of  the  evil,  and  imploring  parliament 
to  apply  a  remedy."  The  remedy  applied  for  was,  the  raising  of 
prices  by  the  creation  of  an  artificial  scarcity ;  a  project  which 
it  could  not  be  expected  that  the  great  body  of  bread-eaters  would 
agree  to.  A  committee  of  inquiry  was  obtained  by  a  sort  of  acci- 
dent—  by  a  number  of  too-confident  members  of  the  House  hav- 
ing gone  home,  instead  of  waiting  till  the  debate  closed  at  four  in 
the  morning ;  2  but  the  government,  who  did  not  choose  to  open 
again  the  question  of  the  corn-laws,  managed  to  limit  the  func- 
tion of  this  committee  to  the  inquiry,  whether  the  averages  were 
obtained  correct,  so  as  to  afford  reliable  information  as  to  the 
prices  of  corn  abroad.  In  1821,  "  the  agricultural  distress  of 
the  present  year  was  not  inferior  to  that  of  1820.  No  new- 
causes  of  embarrassment  had  sprung  up,  but  the  price  of  corn 
still  continued  low  ; "  s  landlords  would  not  reduce  their  rents,  and 
farmers  had  to  pay  their  rents  out  of  their  capital.  In  1822, 
"  the  beginning  of  the  present  year  was  marked  chiefly  by  the 
clamors  of  the  farmers  and  land-owners."4  In  1823,  "  the  coun- 
try exhibited  the  most  unequivocal  marks  of  a  steady  and  pro- 
gressive prosperity.  Every  branch  of  manufacturing  industry 
was  in  a  flourishing  state."  5  Yet,  though  agriculture  was  in  a 
somewhat  less  depressed  condition,  "  complaints  were  uttered,  in 
various  county  meetings  held  immediately  before,  or  shortly  after, 
the  meeting  of  parliament."  These  incessant  groanings,  weari- 
some to  the  ears,  and  truly  distressing  to  the  hearts,  of  all  lis- 
teners, were  not  borne  away  idly  on  the  winds.  They  did  not 
obtain  from  parliament  the  aid  which  the  complainants  desired, 
but  they  largely  advanced  the  cause  of  parliamentary  reform. 
If  the  agricultural  interest  had  been  in  a  state  of  high  prosperity 
from  1820  to  1830,  the  great  question  of  reform  of  parliament 
must  have  remained  afloat  much  longer  than  it  did,  from  the 
inertness  or  opposition  of  the  agricultural  classes  ;  who,  as  it  was, 
were  sufficiently  discontented  with  parliament  to  desire  a  change. 
Extraordinary  as  this  may  appear,  when  we  regard  only  the  pre- 
ponderance of  the  landed  interest  in  the  House  at  that  time,  we 
shall  find,  on  looking  abroad  through  the  country,  that  it  was  so. 
Such  politicians  as  Cobbett  presented  themselves  among  the  dis- 
contented farmers,  and  preached  to  them  about  the  pressure  of 
the  debt,  of  a  bad  system  of  taxation,  and  a  habit  of  extravagant 
expenditure ;  and  of  a  short  method  of  remedying  these  evils,  by 

l  Annual  Register,  1820,  p.  64.  2  Hansard,  i.  p.  691. 

«  Annual  Register,  1821,  p.  66.  *  Ibid.  1822,  p.  1. 

6  Ibid.  1823,  p.  1. 


CHAP.  III.]  PARLIAMENTARY  REFORM.  297 

obtaining  a  better  -  constituted  House  of  Commons.  It  was  no 
small  section  of  the  agricultural  classes  that  assisted  in  carrying 
the  question  at  last ;  and  it  would  be  interesting  to  know  how 
many  of  that  order  of  reformers  obtained  their  convictions  through 
the  distress  of  these  years. 

Except  by  such  advancement  in  political  education  as  is 
wrought  by  adversity,  and  the  discussion  which  it  excites,  the 
first  year  of  the  new  King's  reign  cannot  be  called  one  of  progress. 
No  prosperity  accrued  to  the  people ;  and  nothing  was  done  by 
the  government,  which  could  redeem  them  from  the  odium  of 
their  proceedings  in  regard  to  the  Queen.  The  next  session  was 
more  full  of  deeds  and  of  promise,  and  some  brightness  of  hope 
begins  to  dawn  upon  the  dark  scene  of  misrule  and  discontent  in 
England.  It  was  something  that  the  question  of  par-  pariiamen- 
liamentary  reform  had  now  become  so  prominent  as  ***>  reform, 
that  three  motions  relating  to  it  were  discussed  in  the  course  of 
the  session ;  besides  that  great  meetings  were  held  elsewhere, 
which  kindled  sentiment  and  stimulated  discussion.  Of  these 
meetings,  the  most  important  was  a  dinner  at  the  London  Tavern, 
on  the  4th  of  May,  when  speeches  of  great  vigor  were  made  by 
the  leading  reformers  in  the  House  of  Commons,  and  when  Dr. 
Lushington  openly  declared,  and  clearly  proved,  that  the  way  to 
every  other  reform  was  through  an  amended  constitution  of  the 
legislature. 

From  this  time  may  be  dated  the  continuous  and  successful 
agitation  of  the  reform  question  —  an  agitation  which  was  one 
of  the  blessings  of  peace.  It  appears  to  be  as  true  in  regard  to 
the  life  of  a  nation  as  of  an  individual,  that  in  order  to  rise, 
morally  and  intellectually,  it  must  be  possessed  by  some  great 
idea,  in  the  pursuit  of  which  its  best  powers  must  be  appealed  to 
and  perse veringly  exercised.  As  a  man  will  never  become  wor- 
thy of  his  manhood  who  lives  on  from  day  to  day,  merely  taking 
what  comes,  and  neither  endeavoring  to  raise  his  conceptions  of 
what  he  might  be,  nor  to  live  up  to  such  notions  as  he  has ;  so 
neither  can  a  nation  keep  up  any  nationality  which  has  no  aims 
and  no  ideal.  The  herd  who  live  under  a  despot  may  go  on 
being  a  herd  from  generation  to  generation  ;  they  are  not  a  nation, 
and  not  having  national  privileges,  have  no  national  duty.  With 
those  who  live  under  a  representative  system,  the  case  is  widely 
different ;  they  must  rise  morally,  or  they  will  sink  politically  ; 
thay  cannot  keep  still,  fold  the  hands  to  sleep,  and  leave  the  con- 
duct of  affairs  to  their  rulers.  It  was  the  mistake  of  the  gov- 
ernment of  Lords  Liverpool,  Sidmouth,  Eldon,  and  Castlereagh, 
not  to  perceive  this  plain  truth  ;  and  their  not  perceiving  it  was 
the  cause,  not  only  of  their  misrule,  but  of  their  despondency 
about  the  state  of  the  nation.  During  the  war,  the  nation  were 


298  HISTORY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [BOOK  II. 

supplied  with  the  idea  of  the  time  —  from  Avithout,  as  it  were  ;  so 
that,  to  their  short-sighted  rulers,  all  appeared  safe  and  well  at 
home.  The  idea,  in  this  case,  was  of  the  national  preservation 
first,  and  its  honor  afterwards.  It  is  the  one  only  quality  which 
makes  war  endurable,  that  it  supplies  a  national  idea  at  the  time 
for  the  people's  heart  and  mind  to  work  up  to  ;  and  it  is  the 
great  curse  of  war  —  a  heavier  curse  than  its  bloodshed,  burn- 
ings, and  cost  of  woe  and  wealth  —  that  it  engrosses  a  nation 
with  an  idea  lower  than  it  might  have  and  ought  to  have,  unless 
it  be  a  struggle  for  existence  or  redemption.  The  English  na- 
tion had  now  come  out  of  a  war;  and,  by  the  very  constitution 
of  the  human  mind,  some  great  general  aim  must  be  presented 
for  it  to  work  up  to.  The  government  did  not  see  the  necessity, 
and  would,  iguorantly  and  unconsciously,  have  dissolved  the  na- 
tional unity,  by  requiring  every  man  to  subside  into  his  own 
home  and  proper  business,  without  entertaining  any  national  ideas 
at  all.  till  the  next  war  should  call  up  the  whole  people  again  to 
act  as  one  man. 

In  accordance  with  this  notion  of  theirs,  the  government  set 
itself  to  repress  and  punish  every  movement  of  thought  and 
speech  which  had  any  political  aspiration  in  it.  This  brought 
out  a  more  violent  and  ignorant  thought,  and  a  more  desperate 
speech,  till  there  were  treason  orations  on  hustings,  and  drillings 
on  heaths,  and  diabolical  murder-plots  in  stables  ;  and  the  govern- 
ment regarded  their  charge,  the  nation,  as  sinking  under  an  at- 
tack of  moral  and  poliiical  plague.  There  was  no  fear,  however; 
and  the  lesson  offered  by  those  times  may  serve  to  guide  and 
cheer  a  future  time,  when  a  like  crisis  may  occur,  from  however 
different  causes.  The  necessary  idea  and  consequent  aim  we  re 
sure  to  arise  ;  and  here,  under  this  date,  we  see  what  they  were. 
The  nation  aspired  to  improve  its  own  life.  Like  a  man  who 
finds  his  indolence  weakening  him,  his  want  of  aim  giving  occa- 
sion to  disorder  among  his  passions,  and  his  interior  liberties 
wasting  under  this  anarchy,  and  who  rouses  himself  to  contem- 
plate the  idea  he  once  had  of  what  he  would  be,  and  stimulates 
himself  to  overtake  this  ideal  —  the  English  nation  now  began 
to  rouse  itself  for  its  immortal  struggle  to  become  the  repre-ent- 
ative  commonwealth  that  it  professed  to  be.  Day  by  day  it 
became  clear  to  more  minds,  and  more  clear  to  all  minds,  that  to 
secure  the  integrity  of  the  representation  was  to  secure  all  that 
was  wanted  by  reasonable  malcontents,  and  all  that  was  necessary 
to  silence  unreasonable  disaffection.  From  the  moment  that  re- 
form of  parliament  became  the  ascertained  and  avowed  aim  of 
the  enlightened  part  of  the  English  nation,  a  new  life  was  in- 
fused into  the  frame  of  English  society.  Disaffection  was  ab- 
sorbed into  a  strenuous  political  action,  and  the  noblest  virtues 


Cnxp.  III.]          THE  LESSON  OF  THE   TIMES.  2(J9 

of  activity,  self-denial,  and  generosity  manifested  themselves 
with  growing  vigor  and  glory,  till  the  struggle  and  the  sacrifice 
of  aristocratic  prejudice,  privilege,  and-  interest  were  completed, 
as  regards  that  particular  effort,  by  the  achievement  of  parlia- 
mentary reform  in  1832.  It  was  not  till  that  year  that  the  work 
was  seen  to  be  effectual ;  but  the  effort  yielded  inestimable  fruits 
from  month  to  month  of  the  ten  preceding  years.  During  all 
that  time,  the  people  were  learning  to  apprehend  the  value  of 
that  representative  system  which  had  been  duly  appreciated 
hitherto  only  fitfully  and  partially,  and  had  still  to  be  studied  as 
a  new  lesson  by  the  whole  of  the  generation  which  had  been  oc- 
cupied by  the  ideas  of  the  war.  The  lesson  was  learned,  soundly 
and  thoroughly.  The  lowest  of  the  people  came  to  know  some- 
thing of  the  idea  of  citizenship  ;  the  instructed  became  animated 
with  more  vivid  and  definite  conceptions  of  political  duties  and 
liberties  ;  and  the  holders  of  aristocratic  power,  privilege,  and 
interest,  those  who  held  much  of  the  representation  as  a  per- 
sonal property,  were  strengthened  and  prepared  for  a  sacrifice  of 
political  privilege  and  property,  so  noble  as  is  even  yet  hardly 
appreciated,  but  will  not  fail  to  be  admired  and  honored  as  it 
ought  through  the  unborn  generations  which  will  read  history  in 
the  clear  light  of  a  future  age.  While  the  apprehensive  and 
narrow-minded  rulers  of  that  period  were  shuddering  over  ihe 
revelations  of  the  time,  and  writing  to  each  other  that  "  all  that 
just  and  honest  pride,  which  once  gave  comfort  and  dignity  to  a 
state  of  existence  in  this  country,1  is  nearly  cancelled  and  oblit- 
era'ed,"  that  country  wa-;  preparing  to  show  how  safe  and  liow 
noble  an  abode  it  was  for  the  principles  of  true  liberty  and  im- 
partial law,  and  how  little  was  to  be  feared  for  a  nation  whose 
mult  tude  desired  to  share  in  the  responsibilities  of  legislation 
and  order,  and  whose  aristocracy  could  surrender  ancient  privi- 
lege and  property  at  I  he  summons  of  a  new  time.  There  had 
long  been  some  among  that  aristocracy,  enlightened  and  humane, 
who  had  been  awake  to  this  summons,  and  many  among  the  mul- 
titude who  had  been  impatient  at  its  delay ;  but  the  effectual 
efforts  which  achieved  the  reform  of  parliament  may  be  consid- 
ered to  have  begun  from  this  spring  of  1821. 

The  avowals  and  incitements  uttered  at  that  dinner  at  the 
London  Tavern  on  the  4th  of  May,2  spread  through  the  land, 
being  preceded  by  one,  and  followed  by  two  more  distinct  move- 
ments in  parliament.  That  movements  in  parliament  were  insti- 
gated and  supported  by  the  country  is  evident  enough  —  not  only 
from  the  obvious  truth  that  no  order,  or  corporate  or  assembled 
body,  ever  reforms  itself  without  pressure  from  without,  but  from 
the  number  of  petitions  for  reform  which  we  find  sent  up  to  the 

l  Life  of  Lord  Sidmouth,  iii.  p.  333.  2  Annual  Register,  1821,  p.  43. 


300  HISTORY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [BOOK  II. 

House  during  this  and  succeeding  sessions.  Supported  by  a  mass 
Motions  for  °t' such  petitions,  Mr.  Lambton  moved,  on  the  17th  of 
reform  of  April,  for  a  committee  of  the  whole  House,  to  consider 
ent'  the  state  of  the  representation  of  the  people  in  parlia- 
ment.1 During  the  debate,  which  occupied  two  evenings,  the  op- 
posite benches  were  nearly  empty  ;  and  there  was  so  thin  an  at- 
tendance during  both  evenings  as  to  show  that  the  House  it-elf 
was  little  aware  of  the  growing  importance  of  the  question  before 
it.  The  division  was  taken  during  the  absence  of  the  leading 
members  on  both  sides,  and  even  of  Mr.  Lambton  himself,  the 
numbers  being  55  to  43 ;  that  is,  there  was  a  majority  of  12 
against  Mr.  Lambton's  motion.  Perhaps  the  lending  members 
on  both  sides  might  have  been  surprised  if  they  could  have 
been  told  how,  on  that  day  eleven  years,  the  country  would  be 
awaiting  the  issue  of  the  struggle,  in  the  certainty  of  success ; 
and  how,  on  that  day  twelve  years,  the  reformed  parliament 
would  be  in  full  career,  at  leisure  for  further  improvements,  from 
the  great  question  of  the  century  being  disposed  of. 

On  the  9th  of  May.  Lord  John  Russell  took  up  the  subject,2 
without  securing  much  more  attention  to  what  he  had  to  say  than 
Mr.  Lambton  had  enjoyed.  Few  "  leading  members  "  took  the 
trouble,  or  had  the  courage,  to  attend  while  he  recommended 
his  resolutions.  These  resolutions  went  merely  to  declare  that 
the  people  were  dissatisfied  with  their  representation ;  that 
means  should  be  taken  to  effect  a  representation  of  wealthy  and 
populous  places  which  had  as  yet  no  voice  in  the  legislature ; 
and  that  boroughs  convicted  of  bribery  and  corruption  should  be 
disfranchised.  There  was  liitle  debate  ;  the  first  resolution  was 
condemned  by  a  majority  of  31  in  a  House  of  279  ;  and  the  others 
were  negatived  without  a  division.8 

Unpromising  as  all  this  looked,  a  real  beginning  was  made, 
and  immediately,  to  amend  the  representation.  Grampound  was 
disfranchised,  to  the  dismay  and  grief  of  the  Lord  Chancellor,  who 
saw  no  bounds  to  the  mischief  of  depriving  some  possibly  inno- 
cent electors  there  of  their  votes,  on  account  of  the  corruption 
of  the  rest,4  while  he  could  perceive  no  reason  for  giving  the 
franchise  to  Leeds,  Birmingham,  Manchester,  and  other  populous 
places.  As  the  bill  passed  the  Commons,  the  Grampound  fran- 
chise was  to  be  transferred  to  Leeds ;  but  the  Lords  decided  for 
two  additional  members  for  the  county  of  York,5  instead  of  giv- 
ing a  representation  to  Leeds.  There  was  some  difficulty  as  to 
whether  the  Commons  should  put  up  with  such  a  contravention 
of  their  will  by  the  Lords  ;  but  Lord  John  Russell  thought  it 
important  to  take  all  that  could  be  got  on  this  question ;  and 

i  Hansard,  v.  p.  359.  2  Ibid.  p.  604.  8  Ibid.  p.  624 

<  Ibid.  p.  69G.  6  Ibid.  p.  974. 


CHAP.  Ul.]  PROGRESS  OF  REFORM.  301 

though  the  bill  had  ceased  to  be  his  charge  after  sustaining  some 
essential  alterations  before  it  went  up  to  the  Lords,  he  secured 
its  final  acceptance  by  the  Commons,  and  it  passed  on  the  30th 
of  May.1  It  was  on  occasion  of  this  bill  that  Mr.  Ward 
said 2  that  he  did  not  conceive  that  by  voting  for  the  disfranchise- 
ment  of  Grampound,  "  he  was  giving  any  pledge  to  what  was 
called  parliamentary  reform."  So  he  thought,  and  so  thought 
many  who  were,  like  him,  unaware  that  they  were  now  securely 
involved  in  a  movement  against  which  they  had  formerly  pro- 
tested. It  is  instructive  to  read  the  records  —  in  this  case 
very  brief — of  the  gradual  enlargement  of  views  which  time 
and  thought  bring  to  such  men.  It  is  an  instructive  comment  on 
the  past,  and  a  valuable  prophecy  as  to  the  future.  In  October, 

1819,  Mr.  Ward  writes  to  the  Bishop  of  Llandaff :  8  "  All  I  am 
afraid  of  is,  that  by  having  the  theoretical  defects  of  the  present 
House  of  Commons  perpetually  dinned  into  their  ears,  the  well- 
intentioned  and  well-affected  part  of  the  community  should  at 
last  begin  to  suppose  that  some  reform  is  necessary.     Now,  I  can 
hardly  conceive  any  reform  that  would  not  bring  us  within  the 
draught  of  the  whirlpool  of  democracy,  towards  which  we  should 
be  attracted  by  an  irresistible  force,  and  in  an  hourly  accelerating 
ratio.     But  I  flatter  myself  there  is  wisdom  enough  in  the  coun- 
try to  preserve   us  long  from   such  an  innovation."     In  April, 

1820,  he  writes:4  "But  I  confess  that  when  I   see  the  progress 
that  reform  seems  to  be  making,  not  only  among  the  vulgar,  but 
among  persons    like  yourself,  of   understanding  and   education, 
clear  of  interested  motives  and  party  fanaticism  my  spirits  fail 

me  upon  the  subject I  should  look  forward  with  much 

more  comfort  to  what  may  remain   to  me  of  life,  if  I  could  per- 
suade m\  self  that  the  first  day  of  reform  was  not  at  hand,  and 
that  the  first  day  of  reform  would  not  be  the  first  day  of  the 
English  revolution."     In  February,  1821,  he  tells  his  correspond- 
ent5 that  Sir  J.  Mackintosh  "  would  keep  the  nomination  bor- 
oughs ;  "  adding :  "  For  my  part,  I  am  well  enough  content  with 
the  constitution  as  it  is.     This  much,  however,  1  must  confess, 
that  if  public  opinion  —  the  opinion  of  men  of  sense  and  reflec- 
tion like  yourself,  unconnected  with  party  —  once  turns  against  it, 
there  outiht  to  be  a  change.     We  anti-reformers  stand  upon  prac- 
tical benefit  —  now  there  is  no  talking  about  the  practical  benefit 
of  a  discredited  constitution."     In  June,  1822.  though  still  declar- 
ing himself6  "  afraid  of  parliamentary  reform,"  he  speaks  with 
satisfaction  of  the  control  exercised  by  public  opinion   over  the 
voles  of  the  Commons,  and  bears  this  remarkable  testimony  to  the 

>  Hansard,  v.  p.  1046.  2  Ibid.  iv.  p.  590. 

»  Lord  Dudley's  Letters,  p.  226.  4  Ibid.  p.  247. 

«  Ibid.  p.  277.  «  Ibid.  p.  320. 


302  HISTORY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [BOOK  IL 

improvement  of  the  national  mind  under  the  agitation  of  the  ques- 
tion. Writing  of  Byron's  prediction  of  a  revolution,  he  fays : 
"  For  my  part,  I  cannot  help  flattering  myself,  in  spite  of  a  great 
deal  of  distress,  and  some  discontent,  that  this  event  is  highly  im- 
probable. It  appears  to  me  that  the  people  of  England  are  ad- 
vancing in  knowledge  and  good  sense.  Party  spirit  seems  to  be 
less  blind  and  furious  than  it  used  to  be.  There  is  less  factions 
opposition  —  I  am  not  speaking  of  the  House,  but  of  the  country 
—  to  the  ministry,  and  less  factious  support  of  it.  People  do  not 
abandon  themselves  so  entirely  to  certain  leaders,  but  exercise  a 
more  discriminating  judgment  upon  each  question  as  it  arises."  In 
a  few  years,  he  became  a  member  of  the  Canning  ministry.  Heie 
we  have  in  brief  the  history  of  a  large  class  of  the  minds  of  the 
time,  which  were  opening  sideways,  as  one  may  say,  while  those 
of  the  lowest  order  of  reformers  were  opening  upwards. 

The  other  great  feature  of  the  session  was  the  removal  of  the 
Catholic  conflict  on  the  Catholic  claims  to  the  floor  of  the  House 
claims.  of  Jx>rds.  It  was  evident  to  all  far-seeing  men  that 

the  time  was  approaching  when  it  would  no  longer  do  for  poli- 
ticians to  go  on  repeating  from  year  to  year  their  own  feelings 
about  admitting  Catholics  to  the  legislature,  and  their  own  opin- 
ions about  the  pernicious  character  and  tendencies  of  the  Catholic 
faith  ;  but  when  they  would  be  compelled  by  circumstances  to  take 
a  fresh  view  of  the  whole  question,  modified  as  it  was  by  the 
admission  of  new  elements,  and  bearing  a  new  relation  to  the  his- 
tory of  the  time.  The  occasion  was  drawing  on  from  year  to  year. 
When  we  see  it  arrive,  we  shall  take  a  brief  survey  of  the  old 
view  in  offering  the  aspect  of  the  new.  Meantime,  it  must  be 
recorded  here  that  this  session  of  1821  was  marked  by  the  going 
over  of  the  Commons  to  the  cause  of  the  Catholics,  and  by  the 
responsiblity  of  their  exclusion  from  political  life  being  thrown 
upon  the  Lords.  It  was  in  March  of  this  year  that  Mr.  Ward 
wrote  :  "  Well !  what  say  you  at  Oxford  to  the  progress  the  Ro- 
man Catholics  are  so  evidently  making  towards  an  equal  partici- 
pation of  all  privileges  ?  Is  it  borne  patiently,  or  will  a  great  cry 
be  raised  ?  Not  that  I  think  the  bill  will  pass  this  year ; 1  but  the 
intellectual  preponderance  in  its  favor  is  so  great  in  parliament, 
that  one  can  hardly  conceive  either  that  or  some  such  measure  be- 
ing very  long  delayed.  The  tone  of  opposition  to  it  is  lowered  to 
the  utmost  point."  It  was  not  by  "  intellectual  preponderance  " 
that  Mr.  Plunket's  bill  was  thrown  out  in  the  Lords,  after  hav- 
ing been  passed  in  the  Commons  by  a  majority  of  19  on  the 
third  reading.  "  The  Duke  of  York,"  says  Lord  Eldon,-  ••  has 
done  more  to  quiet  this  matter  than  everything  else  put  together. 
It  has  had  a  great  effect."  If  "  everything  else  "  on  that  side 

1  Lord  Dudley's  Letters,  p.  279.  2  Life  of  Lord  Eldon,  ii.  p.  416. 


CHAP.  III.]     THE  CONSTITUTIONAL  ASSOCIATION.          303 

delayed  the  resistance  to  the  Commons  less  than  the  Duke  of 
York,  the  resistance  was  obviously  in  a  desperate  state.  If  the 
Duke  had  had  anything  to  claim  on  the  ground  of  "  intellectual 
preponderance,"  he  was  mortal,  and  he  was  not  young.  So  the 
issue  was  not  doubtful,  and  probably  not  distant.  The  Catholics 
rejoiced  with  the  quietness  politic  under  their  still  depressed  con- 
dition. The  lovers  of  civil  and  religious  liberty  rejoiced  more 
loudly  and  openly.  The  Lords  rejoiced  also.  In  their  blindness 
to  what  was  coming,  they  thought  all  was  well  when  they  had 
thrown  out  the  bill  of  this  session  by  a  majority  of  39.  Lord 
Eldon  writes :  *  "  I  have  nothing  further  to  delay  your  drinking 
to  the  thirty-nine  who  saved  the  thirty-nine  articles  —  a  very 
fashionable  toast."  Their  rejoicing  might  be  allowed  ungrudg- 
ingly —  not  only  because  it  was  short-lived,  but  because  it  was 
merely  a  veil  shrouding  terrors,  not  the  less  pitiable  for  being 
visionary.  The  spirit  of  fear  is  as  much  an  object  of  compassion 
to  the  spirit  of  faith  in  politics  as  in  any  other  department  of 
life;  and,  till  those  who  suffer  under  it  can  be  disabused  of  their 
terrors,  any  snatches  of  relief  and  mirth  that  they  can  enjoy 
may  be  regarded  with  forbearance,  and  even  sympathy,  by  those, 
among  others,  whom  they  are  oppressing  for  yet  a  little  while. 
So  the  Catholics  could  smile  at  the  echoes  of  the  toast  of  the 
thirty-nine,  while  diligently  preparing  for  a  reurging  of  their 
claims. 

This  year  is  remarkable  for  an  organized   attack   upon   the 
freedom  of  the  press.     It  was  so  soon  baffled  and  so   Congtitu. 
effectually  resisted,  that  a  mere  notification  of  the  fact   tionai  ASSO- 
would  serve,  were  it  not  that   the    promptitude   and 
fidelity  shown  in  the  defence  of  liberty  of  printing  are  themselves 
a  feature  of  the  times  which  ought  to  be  prominently  brought 
forward. 

Seasons  of  harsh  rule  are  invariably  those  of  license  of 
speech.  Wen  under  torment  or  in  bonds  groan  or  curse  ;  and  a 
people  under  stringent  misrule  will  rail ;  and  their  baser  part 
may  be  expected  to  mock  and  blaspheme.  Thus  it  was  while 
Lprd  Sidmouth  was  in  power.  Libels,  caricatures,  irreligious 
scoffs,  abounded ;  and  the  more  they  were  noticed,  the  more  they 
abounded.  It  is  observable  that  these  libels  were  not  the 
weapon  of  any  one  party.  While  the  lowest  venders  of  printed 
trash  were  lampooning  the  rulers  of  the  country,  the  government 
press  was  libelling  the  leaders  of  the  popular  party  ;  and,  indeed, 
pouring  out  slanders  against  every  man  of  liberal  politics  whom 
it  could  find  means  to  attack.  Evil-speaking  seemed  to  have 
sprung  up  like  a  curse  all  over  the  land.  Statesmen,  and  private 
gentlemen,  and  literary  men,  were  fighting  duels ;  and  the 
1  Life  of  Lord  Eldon,  ii.  p.  416. 


304  HISTORY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [BOOK  II. 

prisons  and  police-offices  were  crowded  with  bold  ruffians  or  tat- 
tered ballad-venders,  who  dealt  in  railing  for  bread.  Women 
were  shamed  in  newspapers  —  a  thing  not  much  to  be  wondered 
at,  at  a  time  when  the  highest  woman  in  the  realm  was  pilloried 
in  the  House  of  Lords  for  a  succession  of  weeks ;  the  King  was 
caricatured  —  the  ministers  were  nicknamed  —  every  public  man 
was  slandered  —  and  the  diseased  appetite  for  mockery  and  vitu- 
peration seized  upon  sacred  things ;  and  there  was  nothing  so 
high  or  holy,  but  that  it  was  laid  hold  of  for  purposes  of  malice 
or  low  wit.  The  evil  was  undeniable.  The  only  questions  were 
how  it  arose,  and  how  it  was  to  be  dealt  with.  The  great  prac- 
tical mistake  was  in  the  conclusion  that  it  arose,  unprovoked, 
from  the  natural  wickedness  of  men,  and  that  it  must  be  put 
down  by  the  strong  hand,  —  this  strong  hand  being  by  no  means 
impartial  in  its  pressure.1  Forty  peers  and  bishops,  a  large 
number  of  the  clergy  of  the  Established  Church,  and  of  Tory 
leaders,  in  and  out  of  Parliament,  formed  themselves  into  a  com- 
pany which  they  called  the  Constitutional  Association,  but  which 
was  soon  better  known  through  the  country  by  the  name  of  the 
Bridge-Street  Gang.  They  invited  subscriptions  and  coopera- 
tion  from  all  who  were  well-disposed  towards  piety,  peace,  and 
order ;  and  their  appeal  to  the  religious  world,  and  on  behalf  of 
morals,  taste,  and  quietude,  was  extensively  responded  to.  It 
took  some  time  to  show  well-meaning  and  apprehensive  people 
the  tyranny  and  vice  of  a  system  of  party  superintendence  of 
the  press.  But  this  tyranny  and  the  vicious  principle  of  the 
society  were  apparent  soon  enough  to  secure  the  speedy  insignif- 
icance and  decay  of  the  enterprise.  Englishmen  soon  began  to 
see  that  the  forty  peers  and  bishops  who  undertook  the  control 
of  the  press  could  be  no  proper  members  of  a  court  of  final  ap- 
peal. As  censors  of  the  press,  they  could  not  properly  sit  as 
judges  in  the  House  of  Lords.  P^nglishmen  soon  began  to  in- 
quire what  was  to  become  of  their  liberties  if  a  rich  association 
of  great  men  was  to  spread  its  police  of  spies  and  informers  over 
the  land,  and  prosecute  every  poor  tradesman  who  might  offer  to 
sell  what  they  considered  blasphemous  and  seditious  works.  .It 
was  evident  that  by  a  mere  threat  of  prosecution  they  might 
deter  any  tradesman,  but  a  stout-hearted  one  here  and  there,  from 
selling  any  book  or  paper  which  they  did  not  approve.  English- 
men soon  began  to  cry  "  Shame  !  "  when  they  saw  members  of 
this  association  taking  their  places  in  the  jury-box  in  trials  for 
libel ;  and  the  fate  of  the  enterprise  was  sealed  when  the  judges 
adopted  the  practice  of  compelling  jurymen  to  declare  upon  oath 
whether  they  were  members  of  the  Constitutional  Association, 
before  permitting  them  to  enter  upon  their  function.2  The 
1  Edinburgh  Review,  xxxvii.  p.  120.  a  Hansard,  v.  p.  1487. 


CHAP.  III.]  KING'S   VISIT  TO   IKELAND.  305 

society  had  sent  a  circular  to  every  justice  of  the  peace  through- 
out the  country,1  offering  their  exposition  and  application  of  the 
law  of  libel,  and  requiring  that  it  should  be  universally  made 
known,  as  its  diffusion  would  be  considered  in  aggravation  of 
punishment  in  convictions  for  libel  henceforward ;  they  had 
raised  a  vast  fund,  instituted  many  prosecutions,  —  thrown  gray- 
haired  men,  starving  women,  and  ill-conditioned  adventurers  into 
prison,  to  grow  desperate  there,  and  do  double  mischief  when 
they  came  out  again  ;  they  had  usurped  the  office  of  the  attorney- 
general,  intf  rfered  with  the  administration  of  justice,  and  laid 
hands  on  the  press,  and  were  about  to  raise  up,  by  provocation, 
a  counter-association.2  in  conflict  with  which  the  peace,  temper, 
and  manners  of  society  would  probably  have  given  way  alto- 
gether ;  when,  at  this  point,  the  ravage  was  stopped.  Exposure 
was  all  that  was  necessary ;  and  the  exposure  was  easily  and 
speedily  made.  The  association  was  formed  in  December,  1820. 
On  the  23d  of  the  next  May,3  Mr.  Brougham  directed  the  atten- 
tion of  the  House  of  Commons  to  its  proceedings ;  and  after 
a  discussion  of  its  legality  and  morality,  a  few  nights  afterwards, 
its  vigor  decayed ;  and  before  another  year  was  over,  we  find  it 
spoken  of  in  the  records  of  the  time  as  a  thing  gone  by  —  a 
mischief  and  danger  practically  extinguished,  though  the  associa- 
tion was  not  disbanded.  When  we  consider  what  the  resources 
of  this  society  were,  in  funds,  numbers,  rank,  influence,  and  the 
support  of  good  principle  and  feeling  —  however  misled  and  mis- 
applied—  we  cannot  but  be  struck  with  the  strength  and  live- 
liness of  the  English  instinct  for  liberty,  and  grateful  for  the 
security  afforded  by  its  vigilance. 

So  late  as  the  end  of  April  of  this  year,  Lord  Eldon  writes 
to  his  brother  :  *  "  No  Irish  expedition  ;  probably  no  King's  visit 
coronation."  Yet  the  King  was  crowned,  and  went  to  *°  Ireland- 
Ireland,  and  also,  later  in  the  year,  to  Hanover.  When  he 
went  to  Ireland,  his  ministers  were  happy  in  the  hope  that  the 
visit  of  the  sovereign  would  "  tranquillize "  that  unfortunate 
country ;  and  the  accounts  sent  home  by  Lord  Sidmouth,  who 
attended  the  King,  of  his  reception,  show  no  misgiving  as  to 
the  duration  of  the  "  good  feeling  "  with  which  His  Majesty  was 
greeted.  Nothing  was  visible  but  "  enthusiastic  loyalty,"  induc- 
ing hopes  of  "  permanent  benefit,"  and  this  as  late  as  September. 
Yet,  on  the  20th  of  October,  Lord  Sidmouth  reports  to  Lord 
Londonderry  (Lord  Castlereagh,  under  his  new  title)  "  very  un- 
pleasant accounts  from  Ireland."  Unr-easonable  as  it  would  be 
at  any  time  to  expect  to  satisfy  a  malcontent  nation  by  a  passing 
visit  from  the  sovereign,  there  seem  to  have  been  special  reasons, 

1  Edinburgh  Review,  xxxvii.  p.  121.  *  Hansard,  v.  p.  1491. 

«  Annual  Register,  1821,  p.  60.  *  Life  of  Lord  Eldon,  ii.  p.  416. 

VOL.  ii.  20 


306  HISTORY  OF   THE   PEACE.  [BOOK  II. 

in  this  case,  why  the  royal  appearance  acted  only  for  the  moment, 
and  on  the  surface — and  a  limited  surface.  While  the  royal 
squadron  was  wind-bound  off  Holyhead,  news  arrived  of  the 
death  of  the  Queen.  The  King  proceeded  to  Dublin,  and 
secluded  himself  till  the  corpse  of  his  wife  was  supposed  to  have 
left  England.1  He  then  emerged  —  in  a  mood  which  we  can 
imagine  to  be  shared  by  the  crowd  around  him,  under  the  stimu- 
lus of  Dublin  festivities,  but  which  can  hardly  be  supposed  to 
have  so  impressed  the  Irish  nation  with  reverence  and  love  as  to 
work  in  them  a  sudden  restoration  to  peace,  contentment,  and 
loyalty.  "  I  cannot  help  suspecting,"  writes  Mr.  Ward,2  "  that 
His  Majesty's  late  journeys  to  see  his  kingdoms  of  Ireland  and 
Hanover  will  not,  on  the  whole,  redound  much  to  his  honor  or 
advantage.  His  manners  no  doubt  are,  when  he  pleases,  very 

graceful  and    captivating But,  on  the  whole,  he  wants 

dignity,   not  only  in  the  seclusion  and   familiarity  of  his   more 

private  life,  but  on  public  occasions He  seems  to  have 

behaved,  not  like  a  sovereign  coming  in  pomp  and  state  to  visit 
a  part  of  his  dominions,  but  like  a  popular  candidate  come  down 
upon  an  electioneering  trip.  If,  the  day  before  he  left  Ireland, 
he  had  stood  for  Dublin,  he  would,  I  dare  say,  have  turned  out 
Shaw  or  Grattan." 

At  the  Coronation,  which  took  place  on  the  19th  of  July, 
George  IV.,  for  the  time,  looked  the  king.  There 
was  hollowness  there  too.  The  blaze  fo  jewels,  the 
splendor  of  the  robes,  the  pealing  of  the  music,  the  cry  of  "  God 
save  the  King,"  the  smiles  and  loyal  eagerness,  all  looked  like 
rejoicing ;  but  the  King's  chancellor,  the  keeper  of  his  conscience 
and  slave  of  his  prerogative,  admits  : 8  "  Everybody  went  in  the 
morning  under  very  uncomfortable  feelings  and  dread."  The 
reason  why  was  known  to  all.  There  was  one  outside  knocking 
for  admission,  "  trying  every  door  in  the  Abbey  in  vain."  This 
phantom  of  an  injured  Queen  was  felt,  though  not  seen,  amidst 
the  festivities  ;  and  how  dreaded  it  was,  we  perceive  from  the 
triumph  of  the  pious  Lord  Eldon  in  her  mortification.  "  It  is 

all  over,4  quite  safe  and  well A    gentleman  in  the  hall 

told  us,  that  when  Her  Majesty  got  into  the  carriage  again,  she 

wept John  Bull  spared  us  ;  indeed,  his  family  were  very 

civil  to  me,  in  the  course  of  my  transit  from  the  hall  to  the 
Abbey.  The  business  is  certainly  over  in  a  way  nobody  could 
have  hoped." 

Another  "  business  "  was  "  certainly  over  "  just  at  this  time, 
Death  of  which  must  have  caused  relief  to  the  King  and  his  min- 
Napoieon.  isters,  even  greater  than  that  the  coronation  passed  off 

1  Life  of  Lord  Sidmouth,  iii.  p.  355.  2  Lord  Dudley's  Letters,  p.  295. 

8  Life  of  Lord  Eldou,  ii.  p.  428.  *  Ibid.  p.  427. 


CHAP.  III.]  DEATH  OF  NAPOLEON.  307 

well.  It  may  be  hoped  that  they  also  felt  something  of  the  sol- 
emn and  mournful  emotion  which  ran  through  the  heart  of  the 
civilized  world  at  the  news.  While  the  pageantry  of  our  great 
regal  festival  was  preparing,  —  while  the  gems  were  burnishing, 
and  the  tapestries  unrolling,  and  the  throne  erecting,  and  the 
choir  practising,  the  Chamber  of  Deputies  at  Paris  were  receiv- 
ing the  following  petition  :  — 

"  Napoleon  is  no  more.1  We  claim  his  remains.  The  honor 
of  France  requires  this  restitution ;  and  what  the  honor  of 
France  requires  will  be  accomplished.  She  cannot  endure  that 
he  who  was  her  chief —  that  he  whom  she  saluted  with  the  title 
of  Great,  and  the  designation  of  Emperor,  should  remain  as  a 
trophy  in  the  hands  of  foreigners  ;  and  that  every  Englishman 
may  say,  on  showing  an  insolent  monument,  '  Here  is  the  Em- 
peror of  the  French.' " 

The  temper  of  this  petition  may  be  excused  when  it  is  con- 
sidered that  it  is  from  the  officers  and  adherents  of  Napoleon, 
who  saw  him  pine  and  die,  far  from  home,  and  in  captivity.  At 
such  a  moment,  they  had  the  sympathy  even  of  those  who  had 
most  urgently  demanded  that  the  world  should  be  secured  by  the 
rigid  seclusion  of  him  who  had  troubled  it  so  long  and  so  severely. 
Now  that  it  was  over,  and  that  that  restless  spirit  could  trouble 
his  race  no  more,  the  natural  feelings  of  compassion  and  regret 
arose  strongly  and  universally.  His  fellow-men  began  at  once 
to  look  back  upon  him  as  a  man,  and  not  only  as  a  conqueror 
and  disturber  who  had  humbled  the  pride  of  nations,  and  broken 
up  the  peace  of  continents.  He  was  at  once  regarded  as  a  suf- 
fering man  —  all  pitying  him  for  the  dreadful  fate  of  his  closing 
years,  spent  in  chafing  against  his  bonds,  and  sinking  under  the 
burden  of  ignominious  idleness  ;  while  the  most  thoughtful  had 
a  still  deeper  compassion  for  him,  as  one  who  had  failed  in  the 
ltu«  objects  of  human  life  by  the  pursuit  of  personal  aims. 
Lookjng  back,  they  saw  how  one  endowed  with  noble  powers 
could  have  known  but  little  of  the  peace  of  the  soul ;  and  how, 
in  the  crowning  moments  of  his  triumphs,  his  life  had  been  a- 
failure.  Looking  forward,  they  saw  how,  throughout  the  whole 
future  of  human  experience,  he  would  stand  dishonorably  distin- 
guished from  the  humblest  servant  of  the  race  who  had  minis- 
tered to  its  real  good.  Many,  throughout  all  time,  who  have 
apparently  been  baffled  in  their  aims,  and  labored  in  vain  to 
work  out  their  schemes,  have,  visibly  or  invisibly,  attained  the 
truest  and  highest  success  by  an  unwavering  fidelity  to  the  right 
and  the  true,  and  have  enjoyed  their  natural  recompense  in  the 
exaltation  of  their  own  being.  This  one  man,  before  whose 
powers  the  nations  quailed,  and  whose  will  seemed  to  be,  for  the 
i  Annual  Register,  1821.  Chron.  p.  111. 


308  HISTORY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [BOOK  H. 

time,  the  law  of  his  kind,  was,  in  his  very  triumphs,  a  sufferer  — 
a  wanderer  from  the  home  of  human  affections  —  a  powerless 
and  defeated  soldier  in  the  conflict  of  human  life.  And  he 
could  not  retrieve  himself  in  adversity.  Leisure  and  solitude 
brought  no  healing  to  him.  He  had  no  moral  force  which  could 
respond  to  the  appeal  of  adverse  circumstance.  He  had  in  him 
nothing  of  the  man  which  could,  in  a  season  of  rest,  look  back 
with  wonder  or  a  smile  on  the  turbulence  of  its  childish  vanity 
and  pride  ;  nothing  of  the  sage  which  could  draw  from  the  vicis- 
situdes of  experience  any  aliment  of  present  wisdom  and  peace. 
He  remained  to  the  last  morally  a  child  and  a  sufferer  —  a  baf- 
fled child,  and  an  unconscious  sufferer  from  worse  woes  than  his 
mortifications,  his  bondage,  and  his  privations.  It  might  be  a 
question  whether  all  was  done  for  him,  or  done  in  the  best  way, 
which  his  vast  powers,  and  his  misfortunes,  and  his  appeal  as  an 
enemy,  might  claim ;  but  if  all  had  been  done  which  the  highest 
wisdom  and  magnanimity  could  suggest,  it  could  have  really 
availed  him  nothing.  His  misery  lay  too  deep  for  healing  by 
human  hands  ;  it  was  wrought  into  his  very  being  ;  and  it  could 
be  dissolved  by  no  touch  short  of  that  which  took  out  the  life 
from  the  clay,  and  gave  back  the  dust  to  dust.  That  time  had 
now  come.  The  dulled  eye  no  longer  wandered  over  the  bound- 
less ocean  which  surrounded  his  island-prison ;  his  aching  mind 
no  longer  gazed  abroad  listlessly  over  the  heaving  sea  of  hu- 
man affairs ;  his  spent  heart  had  ceased  its  beating ;  and  his  dust 
lay  under  the  willows  in  that  nook  at  St.  Helena,  where  stran- 
gers came  from  the  east  and  the  west,  to  feel  and  wonder  at 
the  silence  which  had  settled  down  on  one  who  had  made  the 
world  echo  with  the  wail  of  the  widow  and  the  orphan,  the 
groans  of  dying  multitudes,  the  tramp  of  hosts,  and  the  crash  of 
falling  empires.  In  this  nook  of  the  world  there  had  been  no 
peace  to  his  soul ;  and  it  was,  perhaps,  all  the  more  soothing  to 
find  quietness  about  his  grave. 

He  died  on  the  5th  of  May,  1821,1  after  a  painful  arid  linger- 
ing decline.  The  news  of  his  death  reached  England  while 
London  was  preparing  for  the  coronation  of  the  sovereign  who 
had  had  him  in  charge,  and  who  was  to  follow  him,  after  the 
lapse  of  a  few  years,  to  that  bed  of  rest  where  foes  lie  down  side 
by  side  —  comrades  at  last. 

1  Annual  Register,  1821.    Chron.  p.  104. 


CHAP.  IV.]          STRENGTH  OF  THE  MINISTRY.  309 


CHAPTER  IV. 

LORD  LIVERPOOL'S  administration  had  been  very  powerful  in 
its  day  ;  and  it  still  preserved  an  air  of  authority  and  security 
which  imposed  upon  the  general  public,  and  prevented  all  but 
the  watchful  lovers  of  liberty  on  the  one  hand,  and  those  who 
dreaded  change  on  the  other,  from  perceiving  that  a  new  time 
was  coming — a  way  opening  for  the  arrival  of  new  men  and 
new  measures.  , 

The  ministry  were  not  strong  with  the  King.  We  have  seen 
how  nearly  they  were  going  out  immediately  after  his  accession. 
Again,  when  the  King  went  to  Hanover,  there  existed, "an  un- 
comfortable state  of  feeling  between  himself  and  his  prime  min- 
ister," which  was  afterwards  accommodated  ;  but  not  for  long. 
In  December,  he  was  anxious  and  ill-humored  about  a  new 
creation  of  baronets,  on  which  Lord  Sidmouth  observes,  in  a  note 
to  the  Premier,  "and  really  the  matter  is  not  worth  a  gale  of 
wind,  much  less  a  storm."  1  However  trifling  the  subject  of 
these  royal  discontents,  their  frequency  was  by  this  time  affect- 
ing the  strength  of  the  ministry. 

The  administration  was  not  strong  in  itself.  Lord  Sidmouth 
had  long  been  wishing  to  retire  ;  and  there  was  perpetual  appre- 
hension of  the  Lord  Chancellor  being  compelled  to  do  so.  Lord 
Londonderry  showed  at  times  symptoms  of  fatigue  and  nervous- 
ness, which  made  his  colleagues  uneasy,  and  caused  the  King  to 
advise  rest  and  change  of  scene  ;  and  the  anxieties  and  toils  of 
office  were  wearing  down  the  frame  of  the  Premier  himself. 

The  administration  was  not  strong  with  the  country,  though  its 
weakness  was  not  perceived  by  everybody.  The  distress  of  the 
agriculturists  was  pressing ;  and  the  return  to  cash-payments  had 
so  lowered  prices,  and  for  the  time  destroyed  the  ordinary  rela- 
tion between  money  and  other  commodities,  that  the  embarrass- 
ment created  extreme  discontent.  While  the  ignorant  and  im- 
patient of  both  the  moneyed  and  the  landed  classes  threatened 
each  other  with  confiscation  of  the  funds  or  of  estates,  both 
united  in  claims  for  relief  from  the  government  which  no  gov- 
1  Life  of  Lord  Sidmouth,  iii.  p.  371. 


HISTORY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [BOOK  IL 

ernment  could  grant.  The  ministry  preserved  their  attitude  of 
grave  sufficiency  ;  but  they  looked  about  for  aid  and  support. 

Above  all,  the  administration  was  not  strong  in  regard  to  the 
times.  It  spent  a  good  deal  of  leisure  and  energy  in  bemoaning 
the  changes  in  the  spirit  of  the  times  ;  but  it  could  not  prevent 
them,  and  it  could  not  cope  with  them.  It  would  fain  have 
strengthened  continually  the  policy  of  the  Holy  Alliance  abroad ; 
it  would  have  kept  a  good  old  Protestant  Tory,  with  underlings 
like  himself,  in  power  in  Ireland ;  it  would  have  gone  on  impos- 
ing the  same  taxes,  and  following  the  same  routine  in  England 
for  another  term  of  years  ;  but  it  could  do  none  of  these  things. 
Amelioration  drew  on,  in  spite  of  their  fears  and  endeavors. 
England  was  about  to  will  a  more  liberal  continental  policy. 
Ireland  was  about  to  have  rulers  well  disposed  towards  the  Cath- 
olics. A  remission  of  taxation  was  becoming  necessary,  and  the 
principles  of  commerce  were  brought  more  and  more  into  ques- 
tion every  year.  Something  must  be  done.  What  should  it  be  ? 

To  keep  the  Whigs  not  only  out  of  office,  but  out  of  all 
thoughts  of  office,  was  the  first  thing  necessary.  The 
with  the  Whigs  were  not  trained  for  office,  and  were  supposed 
Grenviiie  to  be  so  incompetent  to  its  business  that  it  would  be 
the  greatest  of  misfortunes  to  the  country  if  their 
brilliancy  and  moral  force  in  Parliament  should  carry  them  into 
work  for  which  they  were  unfit.  They  were  supposed  to  be 
aware  of  this  unfitness,  and  to  rely  for  its  reparation  on  the 
Grenviiie  party,  in  alliance  with  whose  practical  ability  they 
could  undertake  to  govern  the  country.  The  thing  to  be  done, 
therefore,  was  to  separate  the  Grenvilles  from  all  sympathy  with 
the  Whigs.  It  was  a  sore  necessity,  that  of  proposing  a  coalition 
with  the  Grenvilles ;  but  it  was  done.  The  Lord  Chancellor 
mourned  over  it.  "  This  coalition,  I  think,  will  have  conse- 
quences very  different  from  those  expected  by  the  members  of 
the  administration  who  brought  it  about.  I  hate  coalitions."  J 
The  inconveniences  were  indeed  great.  The  Grenviiie  party  of 
course  agreed  in  the  main  in  the  political  principles  of  the  Liv- 
erpool cabinet,  or  the  coalition  could  not  have  taken  place  ;  but 
they  were  friendly  to  the  Catholic  claims,  differing  in  this  im- 
portant matter  from  every  member  of  the  cabinet  except  Lord 
Londonderry ;  and  on  the  whole,  there  was  an  inclination  to- 
wards liberalism  in  them  which  was  disturbing  to  official  men  who 
had  so  long  thought  alike,  and  had  all  their  own  way.  Lord 
Liverpool  and  his  colleagues  had  to  reconcile  themselves  to  the 
changes  which  they  had  found  themselves  compelled  to  make,  by 
the  consideration  that  they  had  materially  damaged  the  oppo- 
sition. It  was  not  only  the  opposition  that  was  damaged  by  the 
1  Life  of  Lord  Eldon,  ii.  p.  446. 


CHAP.  IV.]     RETIREMENT  OF  LORD   SIDMOUTH.  311 

change.  The  supporters  of  government  were  made  as  angry  aa 
the  opposition  loaders  were  made  ironical  by  the  sight  of  the 
lavish  gifts  made  to  the  new  allies  on  th<jir  own  demand.  The 
Whig  Lords  wrote  and  said  that  "  everything  had  fallen  in  price 
except  the  Grenvilles  "  ;  and  the  adherents  of  the  ministry  did 
not  conceal  their  opinion  that  the  good  things  given  to  the  Gren- 
villes would  have  been  more  righteously  and  usefully  bestowed 
upon  themselves.  The  accession  was  not  great,  either  as  to 
numbers  or  ability.  Lord  Grenville  had  retired  from  public  life, 
and  would  not  be  tempted  out  of  his  retreat.  The  Marquess  of 
Buckingham  was  made  a  duke  ;  one  of  the  Wynns  went  to  the 
head  of  the  Board  of  Control ;  and  another  was  sent  as  envoy  to 
the  Swiss  canton-,  with  appointments  of  the  value  of  about  4000?. 
a  year.  In  return,  they  brought  a  few  votes  to  the  government, 
lessened  their  own  dignity  and  estimation  in  the  eyes  of  men, 
and  removed  to  a  greater  distance  the  prospect  of  the  accession 
of  the  Whigs  to  power.  One  other  function  they  unconsciously 
fulfilled  —  that  of  a  signal  to  the  nation  that  a  change  was  occur- 
ring in  the  spirit  of  government  which  must  bring  on  a  new  and 
better  time. 

A  more  important  circumstance  than  that  of  the  coming  over 
of  any  number  of  Grenville  officials  and  voters  was  Retirement 
that  Mr.  Peel  at  this  juncture  took  the  office  from,  of  Lord 
which  Lord  Sidmouth  retired.  There  was  little  noise 
made  about  this  at  the  time.  The  friends  and  admirers  of  Lord 
Sidmouth  once  more  congratulated  him  on  the  number  of  plots 
which  he  had  detected,  and  the  energy  with  which  he  had  frus- 
trated them ;  and  all  agreed  that  there  was  so  substantial  an  ac- 
cordance between  the  views,  principles,  and  aims  of  himself  and 
Mr.  Peel,  that  the  country  would  not  feel  the  change  of  men. 
Such  was  really  the  belief  and  sentiment  a  quarter  of  a  century 
ago ;  but  how  strange  does  it  appear  now  !  It  seems  scarcely 
possible  that  these  men  should  have  been  regarded  as,  except  in 
point  of  years,  alike  —  alike  to  the  destinies  of  the  country ; 
while  now  the  elder  is  regarded  as  a  conscientious  and  compla- 
cent bigot,  a  man  of  one  idea,  and  that  idea  one  which  must  unfit 
him  for  wise  administration ;  while  the  other,  then  in  the  first 
full  vigor  of  intellectual  life,  was  preparing  for  an  administration 
of  affaire  which  should  be  signalized  by  perpetual  extension  and 
boundless  fertility  of  resource.  Lord  Sidmouth  watched  for  se- 
dition from  day  to  day.  and  dreamed  of  plots  in  all  seasons  of 
repose.  His  duty  was,  in  his  own  eyes,  to  discover  and  quell 
sedition,  which  he  called  preserving  the  monarchy  ;  his  triumph 
was  to  frustrate  conspiracy  and  hang  the  conspirators.  His  hope 
was  to  root  up  sedition,  and  leave  the  field  of  politics  clear;  and 
his  solace  in  retirement  was  to  be,  that  he  had  caught  the  wicked 


312  HISTORY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [Boos.  H. 

in  their  own  snares,  and  in  so  far  protected  the  good.  "The 
truth  is,"  he  observes,1  "  that  it  was  because  my  official  bed  was 
become  comparatively  a  bed  of  roses  that  1  determined  to  with- 
draw from  it.  When  strewn  with  thorns,  I  would  not  have  left 
it."  While  no  plot  was  hatching,  there  was  nothing  for  him  to 
do ;  and  he  took  the  opportunity  of  introducing  his  successor,  to 
be  in  readiness  for  frustrating  the  next  conspiracy.  But  that 
successor,  considered  at  the  time  so  wonderfully  like 
him  except  in  years,  has  not  been  engaged  ever  since 
about  plots  and  sedition.  He  has  looked  deep  into  the  causes  of 
sedition,  and  seen  how  much  better  it  is  to  obviate  discontent 
than  to  punish  it.  He  has  looked  forwards,  so  as  to  see  that 
there  is  a  law  of  progress  as  imperative  in  politics  as  in  other 
human  affairs  ;  and  he  has  learned  to  satisfy  aspiration  betimes, 
instead  of  attempting  to  crush  it.  He  has  looked  abroad,  far  and 
wide  over  the  expanse  of  human  interests,  and  has  allowed  his 
sense  of  responsibility  to  expand  in  proportion  to  that  observa- 
tion, till  he  has  risen  to  the  head  of  statesmanship,  as  statesman- 
ship is  in  our  age.  He  has  been  the  watchman  and  steersman 
of  an  empire  —  almost  of  a  world  —  while  Lord  Sidmouth  was 
but  its  rat-catcher.  A  sober,  industrious,  vigilant  rat-catcher 
•was  he,  whose  heart  was  truly  in  his  duty ;  but  he  could  not 
rise  above  that  function ;  and  it  is  striking  to  read  now,  in  the 
registers  of  the  time,  concerning  these  two  men,  "  that  the  sub- 
stitution of  the  one  for  the  other  could  have  no  effect  in  the 
course  of  administration." 2  It  is  striking,  too,  to  mark  how 
lesser  men  speak  of  greater  —  the  lesser  men  being  unable  to 
see  beyond  the  circle  filled  by  themselves.  Lord  Sidmouth 
writes  approvingly  of  the  demeanor  of  his  successor,  declaring 
that  "  nothing  could  have  been  more  becoming  and  creditable,"  * 
—  language  which  is  called  by  his  biographer  "  an  almost  pro- 
phetic anticipation "  of  Mr.  Peel's  "  future  eminence."  No  ; 
Lord  Sidmouth  was  disturbed  by  no  such  stirrings  of  prophecy, 
or  he  would  have  remained  on  his  "  bed  of  roses,"  and  have  died 
on  it  sooner  than  recognize  as  a  successor  such  a  redeemer  of 
malcontents  as  Mr.  Peel  has  since  become. 

It  was  at  present  impossible  for  Mr.  Canning  to  be  invited 
into  the  administration.     Men  were  not  agreed  as  to 
!"  the  ground  of  the  evident  impossibility ;  but  the  gen- 
eral belief  was  that  it  was  on   account    of  his    refusal    to   act 
against   the    Queen.     He   had   been   an    early   and   influential 
adviser  of  the  Princess ;  he  would  not  join  in  any  of  the  pro- 
ceedings of  her  adversaries,  and  offered  to  resign,  but  was  not 
permitted  ;  so  he  went  abroad.     When,  on  his  return  from  the 

l  Life  of  Lord  Sidmouth,  iii.  p.  390.          *  Annual  Register,  1822,  p.  6. 
*  Life  of  Lord  Sidmoutb,  iii.  p.  394. 


CHAP.  IV.]  ME.   CANNING.  313 

foreign  travel  with  which  he  had  occupied  the  time  of  the  prose- 
cution, he  found  the  discussion  of  her  affairs  unavoidably  mixed 
up  with  that  of  all  the  doings  of  the  administration,  he  peremp- 
torily resigned  his  place  at  the  Board  of  Control.  By  this  step 
he  was  supposed  to  have  incurred  the  royal  displeasure ;  and  he 
was  not  now  one  of  the  new  members  of  the  government.  But 
his  time  was  coming,  and  the  nation  did  not  long  inquire  for  him 
in  vain.  Meanwhile  there  occurred,  in  regard  to  him,  one  of 
those  striking  instances  of  which  history  is  full,  —  of  how,  while 
'*  man  proposes,  God  disposes."  The  India  Company  were  not 
inclined  to  dispense  with  such  a  man,  if  the  government  could  do 
without  him.  They  offered  him  the  post  of  Governor- General 
of  India;  and  soon  after  Parliament  met  in  1822,  it  was  an- 
nounced that  Mr.  Canning  was  to  succeed  Lord  Hastings  in  that 
office.  During  the  spring  and  summer,  Mr,  Canning  continued 
his  preparations  for  India ;  and  the  nat  on  found  time,  amidst  its 
pressure  of  business  and  of  distress,  to  watch  them  with  regret. 
Many  of  the  multitude  feared  and  disliked  the  aristocratic  ten- 
dencies of  the  man,  and  the  political  bias  of  the  statesman  ;  the 
members  of  the  administration  disliked  ami  cavilled  at  him ;  and 
there  was  much  jealousy  of  hjm  in  the  House  of  Commons;  but 
still,  the  eyes  of  the  nation  were  upon  him  ;  he  was  generally 
regarded  as  the  foremost  man  in  public  life  ;  and  there  was  a 
prevalent  feeling  of  sorrow  and  shame  that  lie  was  allowed  to  go 
so  far  away.  Still,  his  preparations  went  on.  Mr.  VVTard  wrote: 1 
"It  will  be  a  singular  and  unsatisfactory  termination  to  the  career 
of  the  greatest  orator  in  either  House  of  Parliament ;  of  a  man, 
too,  whose  talents  have  always  been  directed  towards  the  support 
of  a  system  of  policy  which  has  succeeded  beyond  the  most  san- 
guine hopes  of  its  promoters."  Lord  Londonderry  was  watch- 
ing the  outbreaks  and  repressions  of  rebellion  in  Italy,  under  the 
despotism  of  the  Holy  Alliance,  —  not  unconscious,  perhaps,  of 
the  deep  curses  with  whii-h  his  name  was  proscribed  through  all 
the  secret  societies,  and  most  of  the  homes  of  the  Continent : 
Ireland  wa>  on  her  trial  again  under  the  wise  and  mild  admin- 
istration of  Lord  Wellesley,  who  this  spring  succeeded  Lord 
Talbot  as  viceroy  ;  "  Vansittart's  crest  was  elevated  "  on  account 
of  an  improved  report  of  the  revenue;  and  Lord  Sidmouth  was 
hoping  2  that  "  perilous  and  merciless  retrenchments  "  would  be 
no  more  heard  of;  and  this  hope  was  so  far  disappointed  as  that 
£3,000,000  of  taxes  were  taken  off;  the  agricultural  interest 
Dbtained  a  loan  of  a  million,  to  support  them  till  the  first  diffi- 
culties of  a  return  to  cash-payments  were  over:  all  these  inter- 
ests were  in  full  career  for  the  months  of  that  spring  and  sum- 
mer; yet  Canning  was  never  lost  sight  of  for  a  moment.  When 
l  Lord  Dudley's  Letters,  p.  301.  2  Life  of  Lord  Sidmoutli,  iii.  p.  372. 


314  HISTORY   OF   THE   PEACE.  [BOOK  II. 

his  preparations  were  made,  and  the  hour  of  sailing  drew  nigh, 
he  went  to  Liverpool,  to  take  his  farewell  of  his  constituents ; 
and  there  we  see  him,  "  at  Seaforth  House,  the  residence  of  his 
friend  Mr.  Gladstone  (the  father  of  the  Right  Hon.  W.  Glad- 
stone), situated  on  a  flat,  stretching  north  of  the  town,  and  over- 
looking the  sea.  The  room  which  he  occupied  looked  out  upon 
the  ocean,  and  here  he  would  sit  for  hours,  gazing  on  the  open 
expanse,  while  young  Gladstone,  who  has  subsequently  obtained 
such  distinction  in  the  councils  of  his  sovereign,  used  to  be  play- 
ing on  the  strand  below."  L  On  this  occasion,  as  he  sat  "  for 
hours,"  he  was  revolving  in  his  mind  news  which  had  reached 
him  on  his  journey  down,  and  which  would  penetrate,  and  fill 
with  his  name,  every  corner  of  Europe,  as  fast  as  the  winds 
could  carry  the  tidings. 

Of  all  the  interests  presenting  themselves  at  this  important 
season,  none  was  more  engrossing  at  the  time  than  the  state  of 
j^^j  Ireland.  Alas !  when  was  it  otherwise  ?  and  when 

WeUeaiey  in  will  it  be  otherwise  ?  There  is  some  satisfaction,  how- 
ever, in  contemplating  this  period,  because  in  this 
direction,  as  in  others,  some  promise  of  a  better  government,  and 
more  social  welfare,  was  dawning.  „  It  must  always  be  long,  and 
seem  yet  longer,  before  the  good  results  of  an  improved  policy 
can  appear  in  a  reliable  form  in  a  society  so  disorganized  as  that 
of  Ireland  ;  but  the  institution  of  the  improvement  is  meanwhile 
a  cheering  spectacle  in  itself.  Lord  Talbot  was  a  viceroy  whose 
mind  was  full  of  ideas  of  Protestant  ascendency  ;  and  it  was  little 
that  his  humane  and  sensible  secretary,  Charles  Grant,  could  do 
to  ameliorate  his  rule ;  and  at  that  time,  the  bigot  Saurin,  the 
unrelenting  foe  of  the  Catholics,  was  attorney-general  for  Ire- 
land. Now,  the  viceroy  and  the  attorney-general,  Mr.  Plunket, 
were  in  favor  of  the  Catholic  claims ;  and  though  the  usual 
method  was  still  pursued  of  appointing  men  of  mutually  coun- 
teracting tendencies,  Mr.  Goulburn  being  sent  as  secretary  with 
the  Marquess  of  Wellesley,  the  gain  to  the  liberal  cause  was,  on 
the  whole,  very  great. 

The  effect  of  the  King's  visit  was  over  almost  as  soon  as  he 
was  oii^t  of  sight ;  and  then  the  heart-burnings  among  fellow-citi- 
zens in  the  towns,  and  outrages  in  the  country,  went  on  as  viru- 
lently as  before.  The  conciliation  dinner,  which  was  to  celebrate 
the  King's  visit,  was  given  up,2  and  the  committee  publicly  re- 
signed their  trust,  on  the  ground  of  the  dissensions  of  the  par- 
ties who  were  to  conciliate.  The  Catholics  offered  addresses  of 
affectionate  congratulation  to  the  incoming  viceroy  ;  while  the 
corporation  of  Dublin  offered  an  address  of  affectionate  condo- 
lence to  the  outgoing  attorney-general.  An  attempt  to  intro- 
>  Life  of  Canning,  by  Robert  Bell,  p.  321.  2  Annual  Register,  1822,  p.  8. 


CHAP.  IV.]         THE   CONDITION  OF  IRELAND.  315 

duce  Catholics  into  corporations  was  defeated  at  a  guild  of  Dub- 
lin merchants ;  and  the  majority  made  ostentatious  rejoicings 
under  the  eyes  of  their  new  ruler.  In  the  country,  no  man's 
house  was  secure  ;  and  those  of  the  gentry  were  so  many  garri- 
sons. Bands  of  Whiteboys  —  hundreds  in  a  band  —  besieged 
these  garrisons,  fought,  plundered,  murdered,  in  defiance  of  po- 
lice and  soldiery.  The  soldiers,  indeed,  found  themselves  power- 
less against  a  foe  so  light-footed,  so  familiar  with  the  country, 
and  so  utterly  reckless  and  desperate  as  the  peasantry  of  the 
south  of  Ireland.  In  the  north,  as  usual,  all  was  comparatively 
quiet ;  but  at  length  symptoms  of  disorder  appeared  there  also. 
It  became  necessary  to  empower  the  viceroy  to  proclaim  any  part 
of  the  country  which  might  be  disturbed  ;  and  in  February  two 
bills  were  passed,  one  to  reimpose  the  Insurrection  Act,  and  the 
other  to  suspend  the  Habeas  Corpus  till  the  ensuing  1st  of  Au- 
gust.1 In  the  course  of  the  month  of  April,  after  a  dreadful  sea- 
son of  disorder  and  its  punishments,  comparative  quiet  seemed  to 
settle  down  on  that  unhappy  country ;  but  to  rebellion  and  its 
retribution  now  succeeded  famine.2  As  in  later  times,  excessive 
rains  rotted  the  potatoes  in  the  ground  ;  and,  as  in  later  times, 
the  people  were  taken  unprepared.  They  ate  their  potatoes  till 
no  more  were  to  be  had ;  and  then  they  took  to  oatmeal,  till  they 
had  no  means  of  purchase  left ;  and  then  they  crowded  the  roads 
and  towns  to  beg,  or  stole  away  into  hiding-places,  to  die  of  hun- 
ger. As  in  later  times,  no  seed-potatoes  were  left,  to  give  some 
hope  of  a  harvest  the  next  year  ;  and  again,  as  so  often  before, 
did  typhus  fever  follow  upon  the  famine,  quelling  rebellion  itself 
in  destitution  and  woe.  The  next  year's  crop  of  potatoes,  how- 
ever, was  good ;  there  was  a  decline  of  insurrectionary  move- 
ment ;  and  the  influence  of  the  liberal  viceroy  did  perhaps  all 
that  it  could  under  the  circumstances.  But  the  opinions  and 
temper  of  the  viceroy  can  effect  bufr  little  in  such  a  case,  while 
the  laws  and  the  conduct  of  surrounding  officials  proceed  on  prin- 
ciples that  he  does  not  hold.  That  the  Marquess  of  Wellesley 
was  favorable  to  the  claims  of  the  Catholics  was  gratifying  to 
them  ;  but  it  did  not  enable  him  to  do  them  or  their  country 
much  good  while  the  laws,  and  almost  every  one  concerned  in 
the  administration  of  them,  were  anti-Catholic.  The  true  field 
of  Irish  amelioration  was  the  floor  of  Parliament,  where  oppres- 
sive and  insulting  laws  could  be  remodelled  or  repealed.  To 
this  end,  Mr.  Canning  directed  what  he  believed  would  be  his 
last  efforts  for  his  country,  before  going  to  the  distant  dependency 
where  he  was  henceforth  to  live  and  work.  On  the  Mr.  canning's 
30th  of  April  of,  as  he  supposed,  his  last  session  in  motion  on 

TJ      i-  ,     ,.  ,     .          .  ,  .,,   ^      Catholic 

Parliament,  he  moved  for  leave  to  bring  in  a  bill  to  peers. 
*  Hausard,  vi.  p.  220.  2  Annual  Register,  1822,  p.  35. 


316  HISTORY   OF   THE   PEACE.  [Boos  1 

annul  the  disabilities  of  Catholic  peers  to  sit  in  the  House  of 
Lords.1  He  professed  to  have  hope  that  a  measure  so  limited  as 
this  might  be  obtained ;  and  he  saw  how  its  adoption  must  open 
a  way  to  further  concessions.  The  bill  was  carried  successfully 
on  its  way,  as  far  as  to  the  second  reading  in  the  House  of  Lords, 
when  it  was  thrown  out  by  a  majority  of  42. 

Till  the  enlarged  liberality  of  the  laws  should  enable  him  to 
do  more,  Lo:d  Wellesley  did,  from  his  own  resources  of  wisdom 
ami  humanity,  what  he  could.  He  greatly  improved  the  police 
of  Ireland  ;'2  he  completed  the  revision  and  amendment  of  the  list 
of  magistrates  ; 8  he  suppressed  the  offensive  demonstrations  of 
the  Orange  party,  forbidding  the  procession  of  the  oth  of  No- 
vember, and  the  decking  out  of  the  statue  on  College  Green ; 4 
and  he  received  with  magnanimous  good-humor  the  evidences  of 
unpopularity  which  he  thus  brought  upon  himself.  The  Dublin 
corporation  censured  him,  under  cover  of  a  censure  of  the  lord 
mayor,  who  had  cooperated  zealously  with  him.  The  "  Protes- 
tant "  news  >a  >ers  abused  him.  The  "  Protestant  "  public  mobbed 
him  at  thr  theatre;5  some  fraction  of  that  loyal  public  throwing  a 
bottle  at  him  on  one  such  occasion.  The  turbulent  people  undei 
him  might  behave  as  they  would ;  it  did  not  deter  him  from 
attempting  to  do  them  good.  The  secret  of  success  in  that  en- 
deavor has  not  yet  been  found ;  but  there  can  be  no  doubt  that 
the  administration  oi' Lord  Wellesley  was  a  benefit  to  Ireland  in 
many  ways.  Never  befo  e,  perhaps,  were  the  affairs  of  Ireland 
so  copiously  discussed  in  the  legislature  as  in  this  season,  when 
her  saddest  disorder  and  misery  called  forth  only  the  more  of  the 
paternal  element  in  the  mind  and  heart  of  her  excellent  ruler.6 
Sir  John  Malcolm  wrote  of  him,  a  year  later  than  this  time,  that 
he  "  was  glad  to  find  the  extreme  Catholics  as  much  out  of  hu- 
mor with  the  lord  lieutenant  as  the  extreme  Orangemen  ;  and 
that "  that  strange  scene,  Ireland,  appeared  to  be  just  at  that 
crisis  when  all  his  highest  qualities,  if  allowed  their  scope,"  must 
do  "  essential  good."  If  we  see,  as  yet,  but  too  little  of  this  u  es- 
sential good,"  we  must  remember  that  Ireland  has  improved  since 
the  times  prior  to  Lord  Wellesley's  rule  ;  improved  in  resources, 
and  even  —  bad  as  matters  yet  are  —  in  principle  and  temper; 
and  there  is  no  saying  how  much  worse  she  might  have  been  now 
but  for  him,  —  how  her  Orangemen  might  have  raved,  and  her 
factions  have  fought  and  jobbed,  as  before  his  day.  But  theio 
is  so  little  to  be  said  yet  of  hope  and  grat illation  about  Ireland, 
that  it  is  a  welcome  change  to  turn  to  any  other  scene  —  even 
of  strife. 

i  Hansard,  vii.  p.  211.  2  Annual  Register,  1822,  p.  42. 

«  Ibid.  p.  53.  *  Ibid.  p.53. 

«  Ibid.  p.  54.  Life  of  Lord  Sidmouth,  iii.  p.  386. 


CHAP.  IV.]       THE  PETERBOROUGH  QUESTIONS.  317 

A  strife  took  place  in  the  Church  at  this  time  which  requires 
notice  from  its  connection  with  both  past  and  future  Peterborough 
states  of  religion  in  England.  Throughout  its  whole  ex-  questions. 
istence,the  Church  of  England  lias  included  three  parties  of  relig- 
ionists ;  men  who  naturally  class  themselves  under  one  of  three 
methods  of  regarding  and  receiving  the  religion  which  is  equally 
precious  to  them  all.  These  sections  are  the  High  Church,  the 
Calvinistic,  and  the  Moderate ;  or,  as  we  call  them  at  the  pres- 
ent day,  the  Catholic,  the  Evangelical,  and  the  Liberal.  By  the 
constitution  and  principle  of  the  Roman  Catholic  Church,  men  of 
all  tendencies  of  mind  are  retained  in  harmony  within  its  pale. 
Under  the  authority  of  that  Church,  every  diversity  of  mind, 
manners,  and  morals  may  repose,  without  further  strife  than 
must  arise  wherever  the  inquisitive  and  active  mind  of  man  has 
scope  and  interest.  But  a  similar  repose  and  harmony  are  not 
possible  in  a  Protestant  Church,  whose  appeal  is  to  the  Scriptures 
themselves,  or  in  other  words,  to  some  other  interpretation  of 
the  Bible  than  that  of  an  infallible  authority.  In  the  framing 
of  the  thirty-nine  articles,  openings  were  left  for  the  liberty  of 
scrupulous  minds  and  strict  intellects  ;  and  by  the  spirit  of  the 
Church  itself,  it  has  always  been  understood  that  the  various 
human  mind  was  to  be  liberally  and  gently  dealt  with,  in  regard 
to  difficult  matters  of  doctrine.  The  mischief  to  be  apprehended 
is,  that  bigots  who  have  the  power  will  think  it  right  to  close 
such  openings,  which  they  consider  openings  to  error ;  and  the 
hope  in  sucli  cases  is,  that  the  instinct  and  principle  of  liberty 
which  wrought  the  Reformation  will  ever  watch  over  the  rights 
and  privileges  it  was  intended  to  secure. 

Every  one  knows  how  much  it  cost  We-ley  to  leave  the 
Church;  and  all  can  understand  how  men  who  followed  soon 
upon  his  time  might  not  only  share  his  reluctance  in  that  par- 
ticular, but  take  warning  against  dissent,  from  the  spectacle  of 
the  Methodist  hierarchy,  established  with  great  and  threatening 
power  outside  the  limits  of  the  Church.  Some  individuals  of 
strong  Calvinistic  tendencies  had  applied  themselves  for  a  con- 
siderable period  before  our  present  date  to  rouse  the  Church 
from  its  indolence  and  carelessness ;  from  what  has  been  called 
its  "  avoidance  of  all  collision  with  controverted  points.1  its  study 
of  ease  and  repose,  its  dealings  in  truisms  and  generalities,  and 
subsidence  into  a  calm  ethical  view  of  Christianity."  This  rous- 
ing, it  was  naturally  thought,  would  be  best  effected  by  the 
phicing  in  the  pulpits  of  the  Church  the  greatest  possible  number 
of  earnest  men,  of  sentiments  called,  in  the  language  of  the  time, 
evangelical.  Mr.  Wilberforce  and  his  friends  did  much  in  fur- 
therance of  this  object ;  and  their  efforts  no  doubt  caused  a  great 
i  A  Retrospect  of  the  Religious  Life  of  England,  p.  122. 


318  HISTORY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [BOOK  II 

revival  of  life  in  the  Church,  and  of  personal  religion  in  the 
higher  classes  of  society.  But.  as  was  sure  to  happen,  they 
roused  something  else  besides  religious  earnestness.  They  awoke 
the  old  High-Church  spirit  of  domination  and  exclusiveness, 
which  wrought  at  lirst  in  single  instances,  and  gradually  enlarged 
its  scope,  till  the  attention  of  the  whole  of  society  was  fixed  on 
that  movement,  called  Tractarian,  which  we  shall  have  occasion 
to  survey  at  a  future  time.  The  first  striking  instance  of  the 
awakening  of  the  old  High-Church  spirit  of  domination  over 
faith  occurred  at  this  time,  and  made  no  little  noise.1 

On  the  14th  of  June,  1821,  a  petition  was  presented  to  the 
House  of  Lords  by  Lord  King,  from  the  Rev.  Henry  W.  Neville, 
rector  of  Blatherwick.  The  story  was  this  ;  and  it  was  pre- 
sented to  Parliament  only  because  the  petitioner  had  no  other 
appeal.  This  rector  was  under  obligation  to  present  a  curate  to 
a  living  in  the  diocese  of  Peterborough  ;  and  he  did  accordingly 
present  the  Rev.  John  Green,  —  a  man  of  unquestionable  char- 
acter and  ability,  who  had  signed  the  thirty-nine  articles,  and 
was  ready  to  sign  them  again.  The  bishop  of  Peterborough 
(Dr.  Herbert  Marsh)  sent  to  him  a  printed  paper,  containing 
eighty-seven  questions  drawn  up  by  himself,  requiring  answers 
to  these  —  such  answers  as  should  be  satisfactory  to  the  bishop 
—  as  a  condition  of  the  curate  being  licensed.  Mr.  Green 
declined  this  new  test ;  and  the  bishop  refused  his  license.  An 
appeal  to  the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury  being  unsuccessful,  the 
petitioner  had  no  choice  but  to  apply  to  the  House  of  Lords  for 
a  judgment  as  to  whether  every  bishop  might  frame  new  tests  as 
a  condition  of  entrance  upon  the  offices  of  the  Church.  The 
matter  was  gone  into  at  greater  length  the  next  year,'2  when 
another  petitioner,  the  Rev.  Mr.  Grimshawe,  on  behalf  of  the 
Rev.  Mr.  Thurtell,  complained  that  the  bishop  would  not  even 
permit  to  the  respondent  any  choice  as  to  the  mode,  even  in  re- 
gard to  length,  in  which  he  should  reply  to  the  questions.  The 
questions  were  in  a  brief,  even  an  abbreviated  form  :  printed  so 
as  to  leave  only  a  certain  blank  space  within  which  the  answers 
must  be  comprehended.  Mr.  Thurtell  answei-ed  the  questions, 
appending,  on  separate  sheets,  his  statements  of  his  opinions,  and 
the  reasons  and  authorities  for  them.  But  the  bishop  wanted 
"short,  plain,  and  positive  answers,"  that  he  might  "know 
whether  the  opinions  of  the  persons  examined  accorded  with 
those  of  the  Church."  The  points  proposed  were  some  of  the 
most  difficult  and  intricate  to  be  found  in  the  whole  compass  of 
theological  science ;  and  the  wisest  persons  saw  the  most  imme- 
diately and  clearly  that  these  were  matters  which  could  not  be 
pronounced  upon,  except  without  any  of  the  due  reservations,  in 
l  Hansard,  v.  p.  1166.  2  Ibid.  vii.  p.  824. 


CHAP.  IV.]  NEW  MARRIAGE  ACT.  319 

the  compass  of  a  few  inches  of  paper.  The  bishop  pleaded  his 
legal  right  to  examine  his  clergy  in  any  manner  he  chose ;  and 
if  this  legal  right  could  not  be  denied,  the  inference  was  that 
some  further  security  for  liberty  of  opinion  was  needed  than  at 
present  existed.  He  asserted  that  his  method  was  not  an  inno- 
vation, —  that  it  was  not  even  unusual ;  but  the  indignation  and 
sorrow  that  it  roused  seem  to  show  that  society  was  surprised  at 
his  proceedings,  and  quite  indisposed  to  acquiesce  in  them.  He 
pleaded,  also,  that  there  was  nothing  in  his  questions  which  was 
not  in  plain  and  direct  accordance  with  the  articles  of  the  Church 

—  the  clear  answer  to  which  was  that  his  fellow-clergy  might 
think  otherwise  ;  and  that  if  they  did  not,  his  questions  were 
purely  needless.  On  both  occasions,  the  House  of  Lords  refused 
to  entertain  the  subject ;  but  it  was  long  before  the  country  let  it 
drop.  On  neither  occasion  was  a  word  uttered  by  any  bishop 
but  the  one  appealed  against.  Lord  Carnarvon  expressed  his 
astonishment  at  their  silence,1  and  did  not  conceal  his  contempt 
of  it.  He  declared  that  these  spiritual  peers,  whose  ample  pres- 
ence that  night  was  certainly  ornamental,  though  not  apparently 
useful,  were  ready  enough  to  give  their  opinion  on  constitutional 
questions,  but  had  not  a  word  to  say  on  a  matter  so  peculiarly 
within  their  province.  The  truth  was,  they  were  unprepared. 
The  great  subject  of  liberty  of  opinion  was  coming  up  again 
before  they  were  trained  and  habituated  to  its  discussion,  or  eveu 
to  its  consideration.  If,  as  is  probable,  they  all  believed  that 
their  Episcopal  brother  had  a  legal  right  to  do  as  he  had  done, 
but  had  yet  been  morally  guilty  of  oppression,  and  therefore, 
functionally,  of  imprudence  and  mischief-making,  they  had  better 
have  said  so.  They  gained  nothing  by  their  silence ;  for  the 
country  said  it  for  them,  through  the  press,  the  pulpit,  and  all 
private  conversation.  Something  was  gained  to  the  cause  of 
liberty  of  opinion,  in  and  out  of  the  Church  ;  and  much  was  done 
towards  that  clear  marking  out  of  the  three  great  religious  par- 
ties which  have  since  been  as  prominently  distinguished  — 
allowing  for  the  softened  spirit  of  the  times  —  as  in  the  days 
when  Laud  pilloried  the  Puritans,  and  "  the  ever-memorable 
Mr.  John  Hales"  was  "bidding  Calvin  good-night." 

A  new  Marriage  Act  passed  this  session,'1*  which  was  of  con- 
siderable importance  as  the  first  great  step  towards  a   \ew  Mar- 
return  to  that  freedom  of  marriage  which  was  abso-   riageAct 
lutely  unlimited  prior   to  the  legislation  of   1753.      The  evils 
arising  from  nullity  of  marriages  had  long  been  found  to  be  so 
great,  that  the  Commons  had,  within  five  years  preceding  this 
time,  passed  three  hills  granting  some  relaxation.     These  bills 
had  been   thrown  out   by  the    Lords,   who  now,8  however,  so 

1  Hansard,  vii.  p.  846.      2  ibid.  p.  1435.       «  Annual  Register,  1822,  p.  88. 


320  HISTORY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [BOOK  II. 

amended  the  bill  of  the  Lower  House  as  to  give  it  a  far  wider 
scope  than  had  been  proposed  there.  The  bill,  when  it  readied 
the  Lords,  provided  that  marriages  which  were  null  in  law 
should  become  legal,  if  left  thus  far  unquestioned  by  any  compe- 
tent tribunal ;  ami  that  illegal  marriages  of  minors  should  hence- 
forth be  not  void,  but  only  voidable,  —  and  voidable  only  within 
the  minority  of  the  parties,  and  under  certain  conditions.  The 
Lords  improved  upon  this  so  far  as  to  decree  that  no  solemnized 
marriage  whatever  could  be  annulled.  The  Lord  Chancellor, 
his  brother,  and  some  other  old-fashioned  peers,  were  excess!  vely 
scandalized  at  the  favor  with  which  this  bill  was  received  in 
their  House  ;  but  they  obtained  little  pity  for  their  concern  ;  for 
that  concern  was  about  those  parts  of  the  measure  which  related 
to  property  pledged  under  the  former  law  to  parties  who  profited 
by  the  irregular  marriage  of  their  connections.  Such  property 
would  now  go  to  the  married  parties,  whose  marriage  would  be 
legalized  by  the  new  bill.  The  Lord  Chancellor  was  full  of 
fears,  as  usual, — fears  that  the  House,  which  had  hitherto  pos- 
sessed the  good  opinion  of  the  country,  would  lose  it,  and  be, 
before  ten  clays  were  over,  utterly  despised  as  guilty  of  legal 
robbery.1  But  the  House  knew  what  it  was  about,  and  what  the 
nation  would  tliink.  It  supported  the  bill  by  a  majority  of  more 
than  two  to  one  ;  and  it  was  aware  that  "  the  country  "  did  not, 
like  the  Lord  Chancellor,  think  that  a  few  partial  claims  of  prop- 
erty, accruing  by  accident,  and  by  such  an  accident  as  an  illegal 
marriage,  were  to  be  preferred  to  the  everlasting  and  illimitable 
claims  of  a  fundamental  nr»rnli;y.  It  was  undoubtedly  a  hard- 
ship that  certain  parties  who  had  been  led  by  a  reliance  on  the 
statute  to  reckon  on  property  forfeited  by  the  irregular  marriage 
of  others,  should  be  di-app  tinted  of  their  expectations  ;  but  the 
blame  of  this  disappointment  lay  with  a  preceding  generation  of 
statesmen,  who  had  been  too  blind  to  see  ihe  mischief  they  were 
doing  in  tampering  with  the  freedom  of  marriage,  —  and  not  with 
those  who  were  now  endeavoring  to  restore  the  sanctity  and  s'a- 
biiity  of  an  institution  in  which  the  morality  of  society  was  still 
involved.  Imprudence  and  carelessness  in  contracting  marriage 
are  a  great  evil ;  but  it  is  less  than  that  of  playing  fast  and 
loose  with  an  institution  whose  "very  virtue  resides  in  its  cer- 
tainty and  irreversibleness.  Whether  a  time  m  ly  come  when 
society  may  perceive  that  its  moral  purity  can  be  better  promoted 
than  by  connecting  the  conjugal  relation  with  law  and  arrange- 
ments of  property,  is  a  question  fairly  open  to  the  speculative 
moralist,  —  a  proper  subject  of  individual  opinion;  but  it  was 
not  the  question  now.  There  was  no  question  of  the  institution 
itself,  but  of  legal  arrangements  under  it ;  and  the  Lords  and 
1  Hansurd,  vii.  p.  1455. 


CHAP.  IV.]      DEATH  OF  LORD  LONDONDERRY.  321 

"  the  country "  were  united  in  considering  the  inviolability  of 
marriage  the  first  consideration  in  morality,  and  the  fate  of  cer- 
tain windfalls  of  property  a  very  inferior  one.  So  the  country 
did  not  throw  off  its  "  good  opinion "  of  the  Upper  House 
"  within  ten  days,"  as  the  Lord  Chancellor  prophesied,  but 
certainly  thought  no  worse  of  the  Lords  for  the  large  majority 
with  which  they  passed  the  new  Marriage  Act  of  1822. 

When  the  session  closed,  on  the  6th  of  August,1  the  King  and 
the  legislature  dispersed,  to  take  their  rest  and  pleasure   close  of 
in  various  ways.     On  the  10th,  the  King  set  off  down   s«8sion- 
the  Thames,  in  great  pomp,  on  his  way  to  Scotland.     Lord  Lon- 
donderry hastened  to  his  seat  at  Foot's  Cray,  to  pre-   King's  visit 
pare  for  his   mission   to  the  Congress  of  Verona  in   to  Scotland. 
October,  where    he    was    to   represent   England.     His    passage 
thither  was  sure  to  be  attended  by  the  curses  of  all  the  lovers  of 
freedom  along  the  road,  and  by  the  groans  of  all  the  secret  soci- 
eties over  which  he  was  to  ride  rough-shod,  to  be  welcomed  at 
the  end  of  his  journey  by  the  sympathies  of  all  the  despots  in 
Europe.     He  probably  knew  this.     He  knew  that  the  continent 
was  honeycombed  with  these  secret  societies ;  and  confident  as 
he  was  of  his  motives  —  imperturbable  as  he  was  in  his  opinions 
—  the  consciousness  of  the  hatred  that  would  dog  his  steps  may 
have  tended  to  disturb  his  nerves,  and  to  perplex  his  brain.     He 
had  been  overwearied  with  the  fatigues  of  the  session  ;  and  he 
had  astonished  and  grieved  his  friends  of  late  by  extraordinary 
tales  of  conspiracies  against  his  private  character,2  —  of  waylay- 
ings  in  the  parks,  and  threats  in  the  street  against  his  purse,  his 
reputation,  and  his  life.     He  repaired    to   his    country-seat,    to 
refresh  himself  by  rest  and  change  of  ideas,  while  ?ome  of  his 
colleagues  went  to  Scotland  in  attendance  upon  the  King.     Mr. 
Canning,  meantime,  was  gone  to  Liverpool,  to  bid  farewell  to  his 
constituents  before  embarking  for  India.     There,  while  he  looked 
abroad  upon  the   sea  from    his   window   at    Seaforth   J)e&th  of 
House,  he  had  awful  news  to  ponder,  —  news  which   Lord  u>n- 
met  the  King  on  his  landing  at  Leith,  —  news  which   d 
struck  the  despots  of  Europe  aghast  upon  their  thrones,  —  news 
which   was  hailed   with   clasped    hands  and  glistening  eyes  by 
aliens  in  many  a  provincial  town  in  England,  and  with  imprudent 
shouts  by  conclaves  of  patriots  abroad. 

"  1  have  this  moment  heard  from  Liverpool,"  s  writes  the  King 
to  his  Chancellor,  "  of  the  melancholy  death  of  his  and  my  dear 
friend,  poor  Londonderry."  "  Poor  Londonderry  "  had  destroyed 
himself.  "  In  common  with  everybody,"  writes  the  Chancellor,4 

1  Annual  Register,  1822,  p.  179.  8  Life  of  Lord  Eldon,  ii.  p.  464. 

2  Cabinet  History  of  England,  xxv.  *  Ibid.  p.  463. 
p.  73. 

VOL.   II.  21 


322  HISTORY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [BOOK  II. 

u  I  am  oppressed  and  much  affected  by  the  loss  of  the  Marquess 
of  Londonderry."  Everybody  was  "  much  affected "  ;  but 
everybody  was  not  "  oppressed."  The  relief  to  a  multitude  was 
so  extraordinary  and  portentous,  that  little  children  who  carried 
the  news,  as  children  love  to  carry  wonderful  news,  without 
knowing  what  it  means,  were  astonished  at  the  effect  of  their 
tidings,  and  saw,  by  the  clasped  hands  and  glistening  eyes  of 
aliens  in  English  towns,  that  there  was  a  meaning  in  the  tidings 
beyond  their  comprehension.  There  are  some  now  who,  in  ma 
ture  years,  cannot  remember  without  emotion  what  they  saw  and 
heard  that  day.  They  could  not  know  how  the  calamity  of  one 
man  —  a  man  amiable,  winning,  and  generous,  in  the  walk  of 
his  daily  life  —  could  penetrate  the  recesses  of  a  world,  not  as  a 
calamity,  but  as  a  ray  of  hope  in  the  midst  of  thickest  darkness. 
This  man  was  the  screw  by  which  England  had  riveted  the 
chains  of  nations.  The  screw  was  drawn,  and  the  immovable 
despotism  might  now  be  overthrown.  It  was  not  only  the  suf- 
ferers who  thought  so.  "  My  great  object,"  continues  the  King 
to  his  Chancellor,1  — "  my  great  object,  my  good  friend,  in 
writing  to  you  to-night,  is  to  tell  you  that  I  have  written  to  Liv- 
erpool, and  I  do  implore  of  you  not  to  lend  yourself  to  any 
arrangement  whatever,  until  my  return  to  town.  This,  indeed, 
is  Lord  Liverpool's  own  proposal ;  and,  as  you  may  suppose,  1 
have  joined  most  cordially  in  the  proposition.  It  will  require 
the  most  prudent  foresight  on  my  part  relative  to  the  new  ar- 
rangements that  must  now  necessarily  take  place.  You  may 
easily  judge  of  the  state  of  my  mind." 

Others  could  judge  of  the  state  of  the  King's  mind,  nearly  as 
well  as  the  Chancellor.  He  was  afraid  of  having  to  accept  Can- 
ning as  a  minister.  While  the  crowd  at  Westminster  Abbey 
greeted  the  removal  of  Lord  Londonderry's  coffin  from  the 
hearse  with  "  a  shout  which  echoed  loudly  through  every  corner 
of  the  Abbey,"  2  Mr.  Canning  was  received  with  acclamations  in 
the  streets  of  Liverpool,  and  at  a  festival  "  to  which  five  hun- 
dred gentlemen  sat  down."  8  They  had  a  persuasion  that  they 
should  not  lose  him  now.  They  could  not  be  sure  of  this ;  for, 
as  he  told  them,  he  did  not  himself  know  what  to  expect.  "  I 
know  as  little,"  he  said,  "  as  any  man  that  now  listens  to  me,  of 
any  arrangements  likely  to  grow  out  of  the  present  state  of 
things."  4  But  every  one  was  aware,  and  no  one  more  than  the 
King,  that  Mr.  Canning  was  the  only  man  equal  to  the  post 
which  was  vacant,  and  that  he  must  now  fill  it.  It  was  a  sore 
necessity ;  but  circumstances  were  too  strong  for  the  royal  and 
ministerial  will.  Yet  "  it  was  not  till  the  8th  of  September 6 

i  Life  of  Lord  Eldon,  ii.  p.  464.  2  Annual  Register,  1822,  p.  181. 

8  Life  of  Canning,  p.  322.  *  Canning's  Speeches,  p.  -J73. 

6  Life  of  Canning,  p.  322. 


CHAP.  IV.]    MR.   CANNING  FOREIGN  SECRETARY.  323 

that  Lord  Liverpool  requested  to  see  Mr.  Canning.  An  inter- 
view took  place  on  the  llth,  when  the  foreign  office  Mr  Cannln<, 
was  offered  to  him  by  the  Premier,  and  accepted  after  foreign  sec-° 
a  struggle."  There  was  much  of  struggle  in  the  busi-  r 
ness  ;  struggle  in  the  minds  of  the  King  and  future  colleagues 
who  feared  and  disliked  him  ;  and  no  little  struggle  to  him  who 
well  knew  that  he  was  entering  on  a  career  where  he  would  ever 
find  opposition  in  his  front,  and  hatred  by  his  side.  What  the 
struggle  was  to  cost  him  was  shown  on  a  day  too  near  for  the 
interests  of  the  world.  But  he  was  full  of  chivalrous  courage ; 
and  he  entered  manfully  on  his  task  of  liberating  nations. 

On  the  17th  of  September,1  the  Duke  of  Wellington  set  out 
for  Verona,  to   attend  the  congress  where   Lord  Lon- 
donderry   had   been    expected ;    and    Lord   Amherst  governor- 
went  to   India  in   the  place   of  Mr.  Canning.     Thus,  fn^i™10f 
while  man  had  prospered,  did  God  dispose  ;  and  the 
destinies  of  the  world  were  thereby  changed,  beyond  human  cal- 
culation. 

i  Annual  Register,  1822,  pp.  183,  184. 


324  HISTORY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [BOOK  IL 


CHAPTER  V. 

THERE  was  abundant  reason  for  the  rejoicing  which  spread 
Policy  of  through  the  world  on  the  death  of  Lord  Londonderry ; 
rastiereagh.  an(j  tne  si,out  which  rang  through  the  Abbey  when 
his  coffin  was  taken  from  the  hearse  was  natural  enough,  though 
neither  decent  nor  humane.  When  a  man's  acts  have  proved 
him  an  enemy  to  his  race,  his  race  will  not  desire  that  he  should 
live  to  continue  those  acts ;  and  the  case  is  not  altered  by  any 
evidence  that  that  man's  eulogists  can  bring  that  he  meant  no 
harm  ;  that  he  meant  some  kind  of  good  ;  and  that  he  was  admired 
and  beloved  in  private  for  certain  qualities  of  his  character.  All 
these  things  may  be  true,  as  indeed  they  are  likely  to  be  ;  for  the 
cases  are  rare  in  which  men  do  deliberately  mean  harm,  and  pro- 
pose to  themselves  to  do  things  for  the  purpose  of  injuring  others. 
The  tyrant  no  more  says  to  himself:  "  Now  I  will  oppress  my 
people,  and  make  them  miserable,"  than  the  liar  proposes  to  him- 
self: "  Now  I  will  tell  a  lie  ; "  or  the  sot :  "  Now  I  will  get  drunk." 
In  all  these  cases  the  sin  is  done  through  a  wrong  habit  of  mind. 
It  comes  out  of  narrow  views  and  selfish  propensities,  and  not 
out  of  an  express  intention  to  do  harm.  The  despots  of  Europe 
were  not  the  less  tyrants  because  they  sincerely  proposed  to  them- 
selves in  their  congress  to  make  their  alliance  a  mirror  of  the 
gospel,  and  to  promote  peace  on  earth  by  means  which  could  not 
but  drive  men  at  one  another's  throats,  and  make  the  very  name 
of  a  religious  sanction  ridiculous.  The  simple  truth  was,  that 
they  did  not  understand  the  gospel  they  invoked,  and  were  igno- 
rant of  the  relation  they  held  to  their  people.  If  the  issue  of 
their  counsels  was  that  the  many  were  made  miserable,  it  is 
natural  enough  that  the  many  should  rejoice  at  the  withdrawal 
of  the  chief  counsellor.  It  was  as  natural  that  a  shout  should 
be  raised  in  Europe,  and  echoed  from  the  Andes,  on  the  death 
of  Londonderry,  as  that  a  groan  should  force  its  way.  and  tremble 
through  the  ocean  to  the  shores  of  the  New  World,  when,  too 
soon  after,  Canning  also  disappeared  from  the  council-board  of 
nations. 

Lord  Londonderry  may  be  called  the  chief  counsellor,  because 
England  certainly  had  the  determining  power  as  to  the  principles 
and  grounds  on  which  the  policy  of  Europe  was  to  proceed.  If 


CHAP.  V.]  THE  PRINCES  OF  EUROPE.  325 

a  true  Englishman  had  been  present,  who  would  have  taken  for 
granted  such  things  as  are  usually  taken  for  granted  in  England, 
and  wherever  a  representative  system  early  impresses  statesmen 
with  a  sense  of  the  value  of  men  and  their  welfare,  the  parcel- 
ling out  of  Europe  could  hardly  have  gone  on  as  audaciously  as 
it  did  in  the  first  instance,  or  the  government  of  nations  by  a 
cabinet  of  sovereigns,  through  subsequent  years.  But  Lord 
Londonderry  had  a  mind  too  narrow  to  comprehend  the  constitu- 
tion of  the  country  he  helped  to  govern,  and  by  far  too  shallow 
to  admit  in  its  greatness  the  idea  of  the  new  era  of  peace  on 
which  the  world  had  entered.  He  could  not  rouse  or  elevate 
the  minds  of  the  potentates  who  surrounded  him,  as  England 
might  and  should  have  roused  and  elevated,  at  that  juncture, 
from  her  disinterestedness,  the  better  impulses  of  Europe.  He 
entered  for  amusement,  as  it  were,  into  the  game  which  others 
were  playing  for  stakes.  He  joined  with  others  in  fixing  the 
boundaries  of  Europe,  as  men  lay  out  an  estate.  As  proprietors 
point  out  the  convenience  of  a  brook  here  —  a  rising  ground 
or  a  wood  there  —  and  consider,  in  their  own  way,  the  welfare 
of  the  resident  serfs,  this  party  of  potentates  settled  about  the 
Rhine,  and  the  Alps,  and  the  interior  forests  ;  and  threw  to- 
gether Belgium  and  Holland,  and  spread  out  the  new  Prussia, 
and  disposed  of  Poland  and  Lombardy,  and  accommodated  or 
bartered  with  each  other  about  the  boundaries  of  their  imperial 
estates.  The  representative  of  England  was  the  one  who  should 
have  reminded  them  that  the  inhabitants  were  the  party  to 
decide  under  what  government  they  would  live ;  and  that  na- 
tionality can  no  more  be  imposed  than  it  can  be  uprooted  in  a 
day.  But  Lord  Londonderry  was  not  a  man  to  whom  these 
primary  considerations  ever  did,  or  ever  could  occur ;  and  those 
at  home  who  sent  him  were  not  the  men  who  would  sponta- 
neously instruct  him  in  a  functional  duty  which  he  could  not 
perceive  for  himself.  Therefore,  as  nations  are  not  serts,  and  as 
the  potentates  were  not,  in  this  case,  the  unquestioned  proprie- 
tors of  men,  the  result  did  not  answer  to  the  gospel  promises  of 
congress ;  and  the  issues  of  the  Holy  Alliance  were  not  exactly 
peace  on  earth  and  good-will  among  men. 

From  this  time  forward,  accordingly,  the  class  of  sovereigns 
and  of  peoples  led  lives  as  different  as  if  they  had  been  of  dif- 
ferent races ;  as  if,  instead  of  the  paternal   and   filial   relation 
between  them  which  was  pretended,  there  were  no  relations  at 
all.     At  the  Congress  of  Verona,  in  1822,  where  the   The  princes 
Duke   of  Wellington   attended    in    the    place   of  the   °f»u«>P«- 
deceased  Lord  Londonderry,  "  the  style  of  compliment  adopted 
bordered,  in  some  instances,  upon  the  ridiculous.     The  old  Bour- 
bon, Ferdinand  of  Naples,  though  he"  had  his  good  qualities,  and 


326  HISTOKY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [BOOK  II. 

no  small  share  of  humor  and  untrained  sagacity,  was  notoriously 
the  least  educated  and  the  most  thoughtless,  indolent,  and  igno- 
rant king  in  all  Europe ;  but,  as  lie  chanced  to  be  the  oldest  of 
the  kings  that  met  at  Verona,  they  called  him  the  Nestor  of 
that  royal  congress The  wordy  and  flowery  Chateau- 
briand, who  was  present  as  a  French  negotiator,  has  turned  it 
into  a  book  and  a  romance."  l  At  home,  the  King  of  Prussia 
amused  himself  and  his  advisers  with  devising  a  plan  of  a  new 
nobility,  which  should  suddenly  become  as  imposing  and  influen- 
tial as  if  it  had  been  a  thousand  years  old.  Ferdinand  of  Spain 
was  inventing  tinsel  ornaments  for  the  Virgin.  The  princes  of 
Germany  were  putting  off  the  irksome  task  of  preparing  the 
constitutions  they  had  promised  to  their  peoples.  The  King  of 
Sweden  was  ordering  the  Storthing  of  Norway  not  to  think  of 
abolishing  their  order  of  hereditary  nobility.  The  Emperor  of 
Russia  was  gratifying  his  benevolent  feelings  by  ordaining  com- 
parative personal  freedom  for  his  serfs,  while  stringently  train- 
ing his  slave-army,  and  making  military  decoration  the  reward 
of  all  kinds  of  merit.  The  restored  Bourbons  of  France  were 
studying  how  best  to  impose  dumbness  on  their  noisy  nation.  The 
King  of  Sardinia  was  swimming  paper-ducks  in  a  wash-basin, 
to  while  away  his  days.  The  Emperor  of  Austria  was,  with 
Prince  Metternich's  help,  devising  sufferings  and  insults  for  the 
bodies  and  souls  of  the  Confaloniere  and  Pellicos,  who,  trouble- 
some children  as  they  were  to  such  a  father,  would  not  accept 
his  fatherly  rule  in  peace,  or  agree  that  to  spare  the  rod  was  to 
The  peoples  spoil  the  child.  While  the  members  of  the  Holy 
of  Europe.  Alliance  were  thus  employed,  there  was  business  of 
a  different  kind  going  on  among  the  multitude  below  them. 

In  Denmark,2  the  young  theologian  Dampe,  suspended  from 
his  public  preaching,  was  giving  private  lectures  on  religion  and 
politics;  and  in  his  study  preparing  plans  for  revolutionizing  the 
kingdom,  till  he  was  shut  up  for  life  in  solitude  and  silence.  In 
Paris,  towards  midnight  of  a  certain  Sunday,  Louvel  was  wait- 
ing outside  the  Opera-House,3  his  hand  upon  the  dagger  with 
which  he  hoped  to  cut  off  the  successor  to  the  throne  of  France 
by  the  murder  of  the  Due  de  Berri.  In  Germany,  certain 
watchful  eyes  were  counting  the  letters  which  Kotzebue  sent 
through  the  post-office,  to  inform  the  Russian  autocrat  of  "  the 
state  of  literature  and  public  opinion  in  the  cities  "  ;  4  that  is,  of 
the  open  songs  and  secret  societies  by  which  the  university 
students  were  endeavoring  to  rouse  and  organize  the  citizens  for  a 
purpose  of  constitutional  demands  ;  and  the  young  fanatic,  Sand, 
was  secretly  nourishing  his  resolution  to  free  the  land  from  the 

1  Cabinet  History  of  England,  xxv.  p.  77.      2  Annual  Register,  1820,  p.  210. 

8  Ibid.  Chron.  p.  42.  *  Penny  Cyclopedia,  art.  Kotzebue. 


CHAP.  V.]  SPANISH  REVOLUTION.  327 

spy.  When  the  act  was  done,  and  Sand  was  sent  after  his  vic- 
tim, "  thousands  of  spectators  hastened,  if  possible,  to  get  some 
drops  of  his  blood,  or  some  of  his  hair.  The  chair  on  which  he 
sat  when  he  underwent  his  punishment  was  purchased  of  the 
executioner  by  a  society  for  six  louis  d'ors.  No  disorder,  how- 
ever, took  place."  *  The  time  was  not  come  for  what  newspa- 
pers call  "  disorder,"  though  there  was  much  of  what  the  sover- 
e  gns  considered  so.  The  Professors  had  "  not  yet  completely 
learned  to  confine  themselves  to  their  proper  province  "  ;  2  they 
forgot  the  morals  of  the  students  in  teaching  them  the  principles 
of  politics.  Even  at  Vienna,  and  in  the  metropolitan  seat  of 
learning,  such  a  spirit  appeared  that  the  Emperor  was  compelled 
to  have  recourse  to  "  severe  measures,"  to  control  the  teachings 
of  the  masters  of  learning.  Along  the  Elbe,  the  Maine,  and  the 
Rhine,  a  silent  symbol  was  put  forth  which  troubled  the  repose 
of  rulers  on  their  thrones.  For  hundreds  of  miles,  men  ap- 
peared in  the  old  German  costume,  which  suggested  to  every- 
body thoughts  of  an  "  ancient  ideal  system  of  Teutonic  free- 
dom."8 In  the  streets  of  Jena  and  Heidelberg,  and  under  the 
walls  of  the  ducal  palace  at  Darmstadt,4  a  song  was  heard  —  the 
celebrated  "  Great  Song,"  "  Princes  arise,  ye  people  rise  !  "  — 
which  was  all  discord  to  the  ears  of  princes,  all  music  to  the 
hearts  of  the  people,  and  whose  authorship  could  never,  by  ihreat 
or  stratagem,  be  discovered.  While  the  Emperor,  at  St.  Peters- 
burg, was  dispensing  his  benevolences,  his  brother  Constantino 
was  torturing  Polish  officers  at  Warsaw,  and  teaching  the  most 
rapid  lessons  of  rebellion  to  the  crowds  gathered  about  the  great 
parade  of  the  city.  When  any  officer  was  declared  to  have 
failed  to  bring  up  his  horse  to  a  hair's-breadth  in  the  line,  he  was 
compelled  to  leap  his  horse  over  a  pyramid  of  bayonets  so  high 
that  it  was  barely  pos-ible  to  escape  impalement  of  one  or  both : 
it'  both  escaped,  the  feat  was  to  be  done  again,  and  then  a  third 
time  ;  and  after  the  popular  cry  of  "  Shame  !  "  and  military  in- 
tercession had  compelled  the  Prince  to  release  his  victim,  it  was 
no  surprise  to  any  one  that  that  victim  disappeared  in  the  night, 
and  forever.  This  Prince  was,  it  is  true,  a  sort  of  Caliban,  and 
no  more  like  the  ordinary  run  of  princes  than  that  of  men  in 
general  ;  but  the  world  saw  him  in  command  of  an  army,  and 
beheld  in  these  scenes  a  spectacle  of  royal  sport  and  popular 
Buttering ;  and  it  went  with  other  things  to  deepen  the  abyss 
between  sovereigns  and  subjects. 

In  Spain,  there  was  no  longer  any  pause  or  any  disguise.     In 
the  south,  Colonel  Riego  rose,  in  the  beginning  of  1820,   Spanish 
and   proclaimed  the  constitution  of   1812.     He   was   Revolution. 

l  Foreign  newspaper,  June.  1820.  2  Annual  Register,  1820,  p.  211. 

«  Ibid.  p.  211.  *  Life  of  Follen,  i.  pp.  52,  585, 


328  HISTORY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [Boon  IL 

soon  disabled  by  accidents  of  the  season  and  of  fortune ;  and 
every  endeavor  was  made  to  conceal  from  the  rest  of  the  king- 
dom what  had  happened  near  Cadiz.  It  is  doubtless  more  con- 
ceivable that  such  an  attempt  should  be  made  in  Spain  than  that 
an  English  cabinet  should  hope  to  prevent  the  people  of  Scotland 
knowing  of  a  rising  in  Dorsetshire  ;  but  it  was  yet  too  absurd  to 
succeed.  All  Spain  presently  knew  of  Riego's  enterprise  ;  and 
the  greater  part  of  the  nation  immediately  rose.  In  a  few  days, 
the  rising  was  in  a  state  to  be  reported  to  all  Europe  as  the  Rev- 
olution in  Spain.  At  the  end  of  February,  the  King  saw  his 
generals  and  his  best  troops  joining  the  liberal  cause.  On  the 
10th  of  March,  he  published  his  intention  of  convening  the  Cortes, 
and  instituting  various  reforms.  But  it  was  too  late.  The 
people  of  Madrid  assembled  round  his  palace,  with  shouts  for  the 
constitution  ;  and  on  the  evening  of  that  same  lOih  of  March 
the  feeble  Ferdinand  promised  and  proclaimed  the  constitution 
of  1812.1 

This  Spanish  revolution  was  the  signal  for  many  risings.  In 
other  revo-  August,  Portugal  followed  ;  and  before  the  year  was 
lutions.  out  Naples  had  demanded  and  obtained  the  proclama- 
tion of  the  Spanish  constitution.  Then  Piedmont  prepared  for  a 
similar  struggle,  and  believed  liberty  to  be  secure  when  Charles 
Albert,  the  present  King  of  Sardinia,  and  Ihen  Prince  of  Carig- 
nano,  swore  that  he  would  lay  down  his  life  for  the  cause.  He 
laid  down  other  lives,  however,  instead  of  his  own  ;  drawing 
back  at  the  critical  moment,  and  in  fact,  if  not  in  purpose, 
betraying  his  confederates  and  their  cause.2  And  now  occurred 
the  circumstances  which  in  reality  assembled  the  congress  at 
Verona,  though  the  pretext  was  a  consultation  on  the  affairs  of 
Greece.  While  Spain  and  Portugal  were  shouting  at  the  fall 
of  the  Inquisition  and  many  another  ancient  wrong,  and  Ger- 
many was  chanting  the  eclioes  of  freedom,  and  Piedmont  and 
Lombardy  were  rapidly  arming,  and  Naples  was  triumphing,  and 
Sicily  was  trembling,  as  if  the  very  Titan  beneath  her  mountain 
were  about  to  arise,  what  was  doing  in  France  ?  The  King  of 
France  was  engro-sed  with  the  fear  that  his  beloved  subjects 
Trench  would  catch  a  fever.  That  was  the  great  affair  in 
army  of  ob-  France  in  1821.  "  A  most  pestilent  fever  '  had  broken 
out  at  Barcelona  the  autumn  before  ; a  and  the  French 
government,  which  took  little  apparent  notice  of  the  political 
epidemic  which  had  appeared  at  Cadiz  and  Corunna,  set  up  a 
vigorous  opposition  to  this  bilious  fever  at  Bar  -elona.  It  d  >es 
not  appear  that  the  disease  spread  beyond  a  small  district ;  but 
the  passes  of  the  Pyrenees  were  filled- with  French  tro  >ps ;  only 

I  Annual  Register,  1820,  p.  255.  2  Annuaire  Historiqtte  Universejle, 

«  Ibid.  p.  465.  1821,  ch..  »v. 


CHAP.  V.]  POLICY  OF  CANNING.  329 

one  road  was  left  open;  and  everything  which  passed  in  and 
out  of  Spain  by  that  road  was  very  critically  examined.  Every 
ass,  and  every  handful  of  fruit  was  surveyed  ;  and  any  person 
who  passed  the  line  without  leave,  anywhere  from  sea  to  sea, 
was  to  be  shot.  These  precautions  were  so  extreme,  and  con- 
tinued so  long  after  the  epidemic  had  ceased  to  be  heard  of,  that 
everybody  saw  that  the  fever  was  not  the  real  object  of  the 
cordon.  There  had  been,  in  fact,  much  correspondence  between 
the  French  and  Spanish  liberals.  The  Spaniards  had  been,  as 
usual,  too  forward  and  boastful,1  representing  the  liberal  cause  as 
more  advanced  than  it  was,  in  their  own  country  and  everywhere 
else  ;  and  the  French  sovereign  had  some  reason  to  fear  for  his 
throne.  Within  a  short  time,  so  many  conspiracies  were  broken 
up,  and  so  many  risings  actually  took  pla^e,  that  it  is  probable 
there  was  an  understanding  between  tlie  secret  societies  of  other 
countries  and  those  of  France.  From  time  to  time,  while  these 
things  were  going  on,  more  and  more  forces  were  posted  along 
the  Spanish  frontier  ;  till  at  last  they  looked  so  like  a  formidable 
army,  that  it  became  time  for  nations  in  alliance  with  both 
France  and  Spain  to  inquire  what  all  these  preparations  were 
for.  It  was  too  late  now  to  say  anything  more  about  the  Barce- 
lona fever ;  for  the  time  we  are  speaking  of  was  the  autumn  of 
18"22,  the  date  of  the  Congress  of  Verona. 

When  the  Duke  of  Wellington  left  London  to  attend  the 
congress,  Mr.  Canning  had  been  in  office  only  forty-eight  hours. 
It  may  be  doubted  whether  he,  bringing  into  office  the  compre- 
hensive views  of  a  by-stander,  believed,  as  the  Duke  of  Welling- 
ton did,  that  the  object  of  the  congress  was  to  consider  the  affairs 
of  Greece,  in  prevention  of  a  war  between  Russia  and  Turkey. 
At  Paris,  the  Duke  was  informed  by  M.  Villele  '2  that  the  affairs 
of  Spnin  would  also  be  deliberated  on;  and  he  wrote  home  to 
desire  instructions. 

Here,  in  our  view,  is  the  parting  point  of  the  former  and  the 
later  foreign  policy  of  England.  The  moment  of  policy  of 
sending  otf  the  reply  to  the  Duke  of  Wellington  was  Canning, 
one  of  inestimable  importance,  and  worthy  of  earnest  notification 
in  history.  The  wording  of  the  despatch  was  simple  enough  ; 
and  there  m  ly  be  little  in  its  contents  to  indicate  its  significance  ; 
but  there  is  just  enough  to  show  that  a  new  spirit  had  arisen  in 
that  conspicuous  sphere ;  and  that  the  function  of  that  new 
spirit  was  not  to  bind  but  to  unloose.  When  the  statesmen  of 
the  continent  heard  that  Wellington  was  to  be  the  substitute  of 
Londonderry  at  the  congress,  they  no  doubt  thought  that  the 
actual  representative  would  be  as  good  for  their  purposes  as  the 
proposed  one,  who  had  been  called  away  to  a  very  different  con- 
1  Life  of  Mackintosh,  ii.  p.  414.  2  Hansard,  viii.  p.  874. 


330  HISTORY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [BOOK  II. 

gress  ;  and  it  was  probably  a  long  time  before  they  became  fully 
aware  of  the  magnitude  of  the  change  which  had  taken  place 
through  the  substitution  of  personages  at  home.  It  was  said 
everywhere  for  years,  and  is  even  at  this  day  said  by  some,  ihat 
the  death  of  Londonderry  made  no  difference  whatever  at  Ve- 
rona ;  that  he  would  have  protested  against  despotic  aggression 
in  Spain  and  elsewhere  ;  and  that  Canning's  opposition  did  not 
go  beyond  protests.  But  the  character  of  a  man's  mind  stamps 
itself  upon  all  his  acts ;  and  protests  to  the  same  general  effect 
from  two  men  of  opposite  character  and  views  may  be  as  truly 
unlike  each  other  as  if  they  were  opposed  in  substance.  It  was 
long  before  Mr.  Canning  did  any  official  act  so  new  and  singular 
as  to  startle  the  world  into  a  conviction  that  here  was  a  new 
man  who  would  reverse  the  old  policy  ;  yet  he  wrought  the 
revolution  as  effectually  as  if  he  had  done  it  by  proclamation. 
He  proclaimed  nothing  which  could  plunge  England  and  other 
countries  into  a  war,  and  precipitate  the  liberals  everywhere 
into  a  rising  which  he  could  not  undertake  to  sustain  ;  but  he 
furthered  the  liberties  of  the  world  quite  as  much  by  h;s  heart 
being  honestly  with  them,  and  his  heartiness  showing  itself  in  all 
his  transactions.  Where  Londonderry's  despatches  would  have 
been  vapid  and  meagre,  because  he  preferred  transacting  busi- 
ness, as  far  as  possible,  by  confidential  conversation,  Canning's 
were  frank  and  glowing,  though  moderate  and  clear.  Where, 
in  the  palaces,  cafes,  and  streets  of  continental  cities,  nothing 
could  have  been  reported  of  Londonderry  but  what  would  have 
shown  him  a  true  brother  of  his  colleagues  in  congress, —  as  hard 
and  unsympathizing,  as  narrow,  and  as  presumptuous  as  the  rest 
who  proposed  to  give  the  world  a  new  image  of  the  gospel, —  the 
speeches  of  Canning  were  creating  a  new  thought  and  a  new 
soul.  Never  did  the  fires  of  western  forests  run  through  the 
wilderness  more  gloriously  than  the  speeches  of  Canning  through 
the  political  wilds  of  Europe,  under  the  deep  night  of  the  Holy 
Alliance.  In  those  western  wildernesses,  the  unaccustomed  and 
the  timid  tremble  and  shriek,  and  hang  together  as  they  see  the 
spreading  flame,  and  hear  the  rush  and  roar,  and  think  of  the 
waste  of  ashes  that  will  be  seen  to-morrow;  but  the  hardy  free- 
man enjoys  the  sight  —  enjoys  the  sprinkling  and  scattering 
blazes  which  seize  upon  decay  and  rottenness,  to  turn  them  into 
freshness  and  fruitfulness.  And  so  it  was  when  the  utterance  of 
Canning  in  the  British  Parliament  ran  over  Europe,  kindling  as 
it  went.  It  was  hateful  and  terrific  to  despots,  because  it  leaped 
upon  their  abuses,  and  scorched  their  vanities,  and  made  of 
their  antiquated  dogmas  ashes  for  a  new  growth  of  opinion  ;  but 
the  restless  spirits  of  that  time  were  quieted  by  that  utterance  — 
quieted  not  by  compulsion,  but  from  within.  They  could  sit  still, 


CHAP.  V.]  MR.   CANNING'S  "SYSTEM."  331 

instead  of  prowling  about  under  the  shadow  of  that  night,  while 
they  had  this  kindling  to  watch,  and  its  promise  to  d*vell  upon. 
Nothing  in  the  career  of  Canning  is  more  striking  than  the 
quietness  of  his  official  action  by  diplomatic  missions  and  state- 
papers,  while  the  whole  heart  of  Europe  beat  whenever  he 
opened  his  lips  to  speak,  and  was  ready  to  burst  when  he  had 
done. 

The  reply  to  the  Duke  of  Wellington's  application  for  instruc- 
tions ran  as  follows :  l  "If  there  be  a  determined  project  to 
interfere,  by  force  or  by  menace,  in  the  present  struggle  in  Spain, 
so  convinced  are  His  Majesty's  government  of  the  uselessness  and 
danger  of  any  such  interference,  so  objectionable  does  it  appear 
to  them  in  principle,  as  well  as  utterly  impracticable  in  execution, 
that,  when  the  necessity  arises,  or,  I  would  rather  say,  when  the 
oppoitunity  offers,  1  am  to  instruct  Your  Grace  at  once  frankly 
and  peremptorily  to  declare,  that  to  any  such  interference,  come 
what  may,  His  Majesty  will  not  be  a  party."  This  was  decided 
enough ;  and  it  may  be  considered  decisive.  The  assembled 
potentates  said  much  —  and  much  might  reasonably  be  said  — 
of  the  violent  character  of  the  liberalism  of  the  time  ;  of  the 
danger  to  empire  when  civil  reforms  were  insisted  upon  and 
undertaken,  as  in  Spain,  by  the  soldiery;  of  the  certain  disorgan- 
ization of  society  if  secret  associations  were  permitted  virtually 
to  rule ;  and  of  the  ferocious  character  of  wars  thus  occasioned ; 
and  all  this  appeared  conclusive  to  persons  who  did  not  per- 
ceive how  their  own  policy  had  generated  all  these  perils ;  yet 
it  was  not  determined  at  the  Congress  of  Verona  to  interfere 
with  Spain  by  force  of  arms.  France  pleaded  strongly  for  such 
interference,*  on  the  ground  of  her  own  dangers  from  interior  dis- 
turbances, and  her  vicinity  to  the  revolutionized  country ;  yet  no 
interference  with  Spain  was  determined  on  at  the  Congress  of 
Verona ;  and  it  was  this  instruction  to  the  British  representative 
which  prevented  it.  He  who  issued  that  instruction  saw  that  to 
make  war  on  the  plea  of  preventing  war  was  the  course  most 
full  of  danger ;  and  his  plan  was  to  endeavor,  by  all  possible 
prudence,  to  preserve  peace. 

Mr.  Canning's  "  system  "  was  much  talked  of  at  the  time  ;  and 
this  was  not  to  be  wondered  at,  at  a  season  when  all  government 
was  supposed  to  be  carried  on  by  "  systems."  System  was  the 
one  idea  of  the  members  of  the  Holy  Alliance  ;  and  it  was  that 
which  solely  occupied  the  mind  of  Lord  Londonderry.  His  suc- 
cessor differed  from  him  in  nothing  more  than  this.  Mr.  Can- 
ning saw  that  there  can  be  no  stability  or  working  power  in  any 
system  but  by  virtue  of  the  principle  involved  in  it ;  and  his  was 
a  mind  which  could  resort  directly  and  constantly  to  the  principle, 
1  Hansard,  viii.  p.  874.  2  Annual  Register,  1822,  p.  218. 


332  HISTORY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [BOOK  IL 

leaving  the  details  of  operation  to  form  and  discover  themselves 
as  they  were  wanted.  Being  sure  of  his  principle,  he  could 
thenceforth  rely  upon  it ;  and  hence  his  quietude  in  official  ac- 
tion, his  calmness  and  power  of  resource  amidst  the  fluctuations 
of  a  disturbed  time,  and  the  consistency  of  his  foreign  policy 
amidst  the  ever-<-hanging  aspects  of  circumstances  whose  total 
elements  no  enlightened  mind  would  dream  of  comprehending. 
The  Metternichs,  Alexanders,  and  Ferdinands  made  a  plan 
Avhich  they  declared  complete ;  and  they  would  have  endeavored 
to  coerce  the  very  elements  themselves  when  they  arose  to  shat- 
ter it.  The  philosopher  who  had  now  come  among  them  saw 
the  narrowness  and  frailty  of  all  political  systems  in  an  age  when 
mankind  had  learned  to  live  and  move ;  and  he  knew  that  the 
age  of  self-will  and  system  for  rulers  was  past,  while  the  ruling 
power  of  principles  is  everlasting.  To  >peak  of  Canning's  u  sys- 
tem," therefore,  is  not  to  do  justice  to  him.  To  understand  him, 
we  must  look  for  his  principle  first,  and  then  for  the  practical 
purpose  which  lay  nearest  to  it. 

His  principle  was  the  preservation  of  peace ;  aud  his  imme- 
diate practical  purpose  was  to  dissolve,  by  the  quietest  means, 
the  Holy  Alliance. 

Mr.  Canning  never  concealed  that  he  would  have  been  glad  to 
have  left  England  unrepresented  at  the  Congress  of  Verona,1  as 
the  most  immediate  method  of  withdrawing  her  from  the  Holy 
Alliance ;  but  the  time  was  so  short  that  the  step  would  have 
been  too  hazardous.  It  took  him  two  years  to  set  England 
free  for  her  own  action  abroad ;  but  he  did  it  peacefully  and 
effectually.  It  was  no  very  easy  task.  The  sovereigns  abroad 
and  their  ministers  had  carefully  and  constantlv  represented 
England  as  favorable  to  the  principles  of  the  Holy  Alliance ; 
and  every  countenance  was  given  to  this  by  Lord  Londonderry's 
conduct,  and  by  our  war  against  revolution  in  France.  All  the 
rulers  looked  to  England  tor  aid  against  revolution  everywhere. 
And  the  suffering  nations,  longing  to  rise,  when  assured  that 
England  did  not  favor  the  principles  of  the  Holy  Alliance,  ex- 
pected from  her  that  she  should  aid  revolution  everywhere. 
Both  these  expectations  included  a  breaking  up  of  peace ;  aud 
the  preservation  of  peace  was  Mr.  Canning's  first  object ;  so  he 
gratified  neither  of  the  expectant  parties. 

But  occasion  soon  offered  for  declaring  the  new  policy  of 
England,  and  for  loosening  the  bonds  of  the  alliance.  It  pres- 
ently came  out  that  the  French  army  on  the  frontier  of  Spain 
was  not  wanted  against  the  Barcelona  fever,  and  would  march  on 
Congress  of  into  Spain,  to  aid  Ferdinand  against  his  subjects,  and 
Zeron*-  put  down  the  constitution.  The  Emperor  of  Russia 
*  Life  of  Canning,  p.  328. 


CHAP.  V.]  FRENCH  INVASION  OF  SPAIN.  333 

was  delighted  ;  and  all  the  other  potentates  applauded  and  prom- 
ised aid.  But  the  Duke  of  Wellington  followed  his  instructions, 
dissented  and  remonstrated,  and  withdrew.1  The  instructions  in 
this  instance  were  clear  and  decided  ;  Mr.  Canning's  words  being, 
that,  "  if  a  declaration  2  of  any  such  determination  should  be  made 
at  Verona,  come  what  might,  he  should  refuse  the  King's  consent 
to  become  a  party  to  it,  even  though  the  dissolution  of  the  alli- 
ance should  be  the  consequence  of  the  refusal."  One  consequence 
of  the  refusal  was  a  correspondence  between  Mr.  Canning,  the 
flowery  Chateaubriand,  and  the  bigot  Polignac,  wherein  the 
high-flown  royalists  expatiated  on  the  blessing  to  the  Spaniards 
of  seeing  their  King  free  to  give  them,  with  French  aid,  such  a 
constitution  as  should  be  best  for  them.  Mr.  Canning  could  not 
allow  this  to  pass,  and  protested  against  the  doctrine  that  consti- 
tutional rights  are  conferred  by  the  royal  pleasure.  In  noticing 
the  speech  of  the  French  King  on  opening  the  Chambers,  in 
which  the  purpose  of  invading  Spain  was  declared,  —  while  the 
Due  d'Angouleme  laid  his  hand  on  his  sword,  and  raised  his  eyes 
to  heaven,  —  Mr.  Canning  declared  that  the  speech  appeared  to 
mean  *'  that  the  free  institutions  of  the  Spanish  people  could  only 
be  legitimately  held  from  the  spontaneous  gift  of  the  sovereign, 
first  restored  to  absolute  power,  and  then  divesting  himself  of 
such  portion  of  that  power  as  he  might  think  proper  to  part 
with  ;"athat  "the  Spanish  nation  could  not  be  expected  to  sub- 
scribe to  this  principle,  nor  could  any  British  statesman  uphold 

or  defend  it It  is  indeed  a  principle  which  strikes  at  the 

root  of  the  British  constitution." 

After  all  M.  Chateaubriand's  declarations  and  fine  sentiments 
in  favor  of  peace,  the  Due  d'Angouleme  laid  his  hand  on  his 
sword  again,  on  the  other  side  of  the  Pyrenees.     The  French 
invaded  Spain.     England  had  done  what  she  could  in    French 
declaring  for  the  right,  and  seceding  from  the  congress   invasion  of 
which    advocated   the  wrong ;    she  now  held  herself  Spam- 
neutral.     It  was  on  the  14th  of  April,  1823,  that  Mr.  Canning 
made  in  the  House  all  the  declarations  rendered  necessary  by 
the  act  of  France  in  invading  Spain.     He  explained  the  course 
and  issue  of  all  the  attempts  at  mediation  made  by   intentions 
the  English  government,  the  grounds  of  the  neutrality   of  En«lan(1- 
which  she  had  now   finally  avowed  ;  and  pointed  out  what  must 
be  the  conduct  of  England  in  regard  to  Portugal  and  the  South 
American  colonies  of  Spain,  in  certain  contingencies  which  might 
ari-e.     If  Portugal  joined  Spain  in  repelling  the  French,  there 
was  no  call  upon  England  to  interfere ;  but  if  Portugal,  remain- 
ing quiescent,   were   to  be  attacked,  that  attack  "  would   bring 

l  Hansard,  viii.  p.  877.  2  Life  of  Canning,  p.  330. 

'  Hansard,  viii.  p.  948. 


334  HISTORY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [Boos  IL 

Great  Britain  into  the  field  with  all  her  force,  to  support  the 
independence  of  her  ancient  and  her  faithful  ally."  *  As  for  the 
South  American  colonies,  it  was  clear  that  Spain,  though  claim- 
ing them  still  as  hers  by  right,  had  in  fact  lost  all  power  over 
them.  If  France  should,  in  the  course  of  the  war,  capture  any 
of  them,  so  that  it  would  become  at  last  a  question  whether  they 
should  be  ceded,  and  to  whom,  it  would  be  necessary  for  all  par- 
ties to  know  that  the  British  government 2  u  considered  the  separa- 
tion of  the  colonies  from  Spain  to  have  been  effected  to  such  a 
degree  that  it  would  not  tolerate  for  an  instant  any  cession  which 
Spain  might  make  of  colonies  over  which  she  did  not  exercise  a 
direct  and  positive  influence.  To  such  a  declaration  the  Brit- 
ish government  had  at  last  been  forced." 

The  declaration  of  neutrality  was  painful  and  disconcerting  to 
some  of  the  best  men  in  Parliament  and  out  of  it.  They  were 
so  accustomed  to  speak  of  England  as  the  champion  of  the  liber- 
ties of  the  world,  and  had  so  completely  understood  her  secession 
from  the  Holy  Alliance  as  declaratory  of  this,  that  it  appeared 
to  them  a  disgrace  to  look  on,  without  taking  part  in  one  of  the 
most  indefensible  wars  against  liberty  which  had  ever  been  en- 
tered into.  The  Foreign  Secretary  had  much  to  encounter  in  the 
House,  —  angry  rebuke  from  some,  and  pathetic  expostulation 
from  others.  When  the  debate  on  the  negotiations  relative  to 
Spain  had  been  twice  adjourned,  Mr.  Canning  offered,  on  the 
third  night,  an  explanation  of  his  proceedings  and  reasons,  which 
Pronounced  s®0111^  hi™  the  enthusiastic  support  of  the  House 
on  by  Pmr-  and  the  country.  The  motion  which  bad  occasioned 
the  debate  was  one  of  censure  of  the  feebleness  of 
tone  assumed  by  government  in  the  recent  negotiations  :  and  the 
amendment  proposed  was  a  declaration  of  gratitude  and  appro- 
bation in  regard  to  what  had  been  done.  At  the  close,  the  op- 
position members  were  about  to  leave  the  House  in  a  body  ;  but 
some  ministerial  members  called  for  a  division.  It  was  only  for 
want  of  room  in  the  lobby  that  any  one  appeared  to  vote  against 
the  government.  The  whole  assembly  poured  into  the  lobby,  till 
it  could  hold  no  more  ;  and  then  the  twenty  members  who  were 
shut  in  were  compelled  to  pass  for  an  opposition,  though  there 
were  ministerialists  among  them.  They  amounted  to  20,  in  a 
House  of  372.* 

One  passage  of  Mr.  Canning's  speech  spread  over  the  worM, 
and  was  vehemently  hailed  or  resented  wherever  it  reached  :  — 

"  I  contend,  sir,4  that  whatever  might  grow  out  of  a  separate 
conflict  between  Spain  and  France  —  though  matter  for  grave 
consideration  —  was  less  to  be  dreaded  than  that  all  the  great 

i  Hansard,  viii.  p.  889.  *  Ibid.  p.  891. 

«  Ibid.  p.  1548.  <  Ibid.  p.  1483. 


CHAP.  V.]  SPEECHES  OF  CANNING.  335 

powers  of  the  Continent  should  have  been  arrayed  together 
against  Spain  ;  and  that  although  the  first  object,  in  point  of  im- 
portance, indeed,  was  to  keep  the  peace  altogether  —  to  prevent 
any  war  against  Spain  — the  first  in  point  of  time  was  to  prevent 
a  general  war ;  to  change  the  question  from  a  question  between 
the  allies  on  one  side,  and  Spain  on  the  other,  to  a  question  be- 
tween nation  and  nation.  This,  whatever  the  result  might  be, 
would  reduce  the  quarrel  to  the  size  of  ordinary  events,  and 
bring  it  within  the  scope  of  ordinary  diplomacy.  The  immediate 
object  of  England,  therefore,  was  to  hinder  the  impi-ess  of  a  joint 
character,  from  being  affixed  to  the  war  —  if  war  there  must  be 
—  with  Spain  ;  to  take  care  that  the  war  should  not  grow  out  of 
an  assumed  jurisdiction  of  the  congress ;  to  keep  within  reason- 
able bounds  that  predominating  Areopngitical1  spirit,  which  the 
memorandum  of  the  British  cabinet,  of  May,  1820,  describes  as 
'  beyond  the  sphere  of  the  original  conception,  and  understood 
principles  of  the  alliance' — 'an  alliance  never  intended  as  a 
union  for  the  government  of  the  world,  or  for  the  superintend- 
ence of  the  internal  affairs  of  other  states.'  And  this,  I  say, 
was  accomplished."  "  Canning,"  says  his  biographer,  "  always 
protested  against  the  system  of  holding  congresses  for  the  gov- 
ernment of  the  world.2 

As  this  noted  speech  declared,  the  object  of  Great  Britain 
was  accomplished  in  the  potentates  at  Verona  being  deterred 
from  declaring  a  war  against  Spain.  The  matter  lay  now  be- 
tween the  two  countries  which  were  separated  by  the  Pyrenees ; 
and  peace  was  preserved  elsewhere.  What  his  idea  was  of  the 
peace  to  be  preserved  by  Great  Britain,  he  manife-ted  in  a 
speech  delivered  at  Plymouth  in  the  autumn  of  the  same  year, 
when  the  French  and  Spaniards  were  at  war,  —  1823.  "  Our 
ultimate  object  was,"  he  said,  "  the  peace  of  the  world ;  but  let 
it  not  be  said  that  we  cultivate  peace  either  because  we  fear,  or 
because  we  are  unprepared  for  war ;  on  the  contrary,  if,  eight 
months  ago,  the  government  did  not  hesitate  to  proclaim  that  the 
country  was  prepared  for  war,  if  war  should  unfortunately  be 
necessary,  every  month  of  peace  that  has  since  passed  has  but 
made  us  so  much  the  more  capable  of  exertion.  The  resources 
created  by  peace  are  means  of  war.  In  cherishing  those  re- 
sources, we  but  accumulate  those  means.  Our  present  repose  is 
no  more  a  proof  of  inability  to  act  than  the  state  of  inertness 
and  inactivity  in  which  I  have  seen  those  mighty  masses  that 
float  in  the  waters  above  your  town  is  a  proof  they  are  devoid 

1  The  council  of  Areopagus,  at  Athens,  It  was  a  more  meddling  council  than  it 

was  remarkable  for  its  penetrating  and  became  any  congress  to  resemble,  in  a 

superintending  character ;  pronouncing  later  age  of  the  world. 

on  the  economy  of  private  houses,  and  2  Life  of  Canning,  p.  334. 
judging  children  for  tormenting  birds. 


336  HISTORY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [BOOK  IL 

of  strength,  and  incapable  of  being  fitted  for  action.  You  well 
know,  gentlemen,  how  soon  one  of  those  stupendous  masses,  now 
reposing  on  their  shadows  in  perfect  stillness — how  soon,  upon 
any  call  of  patriotism  or  of  necessity,  it  would  assume  the  like- 
ness of  an  animated  thing  —  instinct  with  life  and  motion,  —  how 
soon  it  would  ruffle,  as  it  were,  its  swelling  plumage,  —  how 
quickly  it  would  put  forth  all  its  beauty  and  its  bravery,  collect 
its  scattered  elements  of  strength,  and  awaken  its  dormant  thun- 
der. Such  as  is  one  of  these  magnificent  machines  when  spring- 
ing from  inaction  into  a  display  of  its  might  —  such  is  England 
herself:  while  apparently  passive  and  motionless,  she  silently  con- 
centrates the  power  to  be  put  forth  on  an  adequate  occasion." 

For  that  adequate  occasion  he  kept  watch'  as  vigilantly  as  any 
advocate  of  war  could  have  done  ;  for  he  was  not  one  to  sacrifice 
the  honor  or  influence  of  the  country  for  the  sake  of  the  peace 
for  which  these  were,  and  always  must  be,  the  guarantees. 
When  it  was  necessary  to  speak  and  act  again,  Great  Britain 
spoke  and  acted.  The  French  overran  Spain  from  end  to  end. 
The  Spanish  liberals  had  fewer  resources,  less  union,  and  less 
hope  than  their  enemy;  and  they  were  cruelly  betrayed,  not  only 
by  some  few  traitors  from  among  themselves,  but  by  the  boastings 
of  the  French  liberals,  who  had  assured  them  that  a  large  portion 
of  the  invading  army  would  fraternize  with  the  invaded,  on  touch- 
ing Spanish  soil.  Instead  of  this  happening,  however,  the  French 
soldiery  no  sooner  appeared  from  the  passes  of  the  Pyrenees 
than  the  royalist  minority  in  Spain  were  joined  by  such  numbers 
as  enabled  them  to  cope  with  the  constitutional  forces,  even  with- 
out tlie  aid  of  a  foreign  invader.  The  soldiery  were  certainly 
royalist ;  and  they  showed  it  now.  The  French  entered  Ma- 
drid on  the  24th  of  May,1  within  a  month  after  the  delivery,  by 
Mr.  Canning,  of  his  exposition  of  the  British  policy  in  regard  to 
this  conflict.  The  liberals  were  still  in  possession  of  the  person 
of  the  King,  wlio  was  imprisoned  by  them  at  Cadiz.  There  he 
amused  himself  with  attempting  to  make  signals  to  friends  in  the 
blockading  vessels,  or  outride  the  walls,  —  taking  a  sudden  fancy 
for  sending  up  rockets  and  flying  kites.  Rockets  and  kites  innu- 
merable were  ready  to  go  up  at  the  same  moment  with  the  King's, 
to  perplex  the  royalist  watchers  outside.  He  obtained  his  free- 
dom at  last  from  the  hopelessness  of  his  enemies.  They  dis- 
missed him  from  Cadiz  on  the  1st  of  October,  to  join  his  French 
friends  ; 2  and  two  days  afterwards  they  surrendered  the  town, 

Overthrowof    an^  &ave    UP  tne    c&use'       ^8    ^  WaS    nOt    tne    c&USe  of 

the  Spanish     the  whole  people,  —  as  the  clergy  and  the  great  body 

revolution.     Qf  ^  pOpU]atjon  welcomed  the  French,  —  it  is  clear 

that  no  aid  given  by  Great   Britain  could  have  saved  Spain,  or 

1  Annuaire  Historique,  1823,  p.  392.  2  Ibid.  p.  472. 


CHAP.  V.]  SOUTH  AMERICAN   PROVINCES.  337 

materially  benefited  it.  while  it  would  have  precipitated  war  all 
over  Europe,  and  violated  the  great  principle  of  non-interference 
with  the  affairs  of  other  nations.  Ferdinand  immediately  an- 
nulled, by  proclamation,  all  the  acts  of  the  constitutional  govern- 
ment,—  the  whole  legislation  and  administration  of  Spain  for  the 
preceding  three  years  and  a  half;  and  thus,  when  Riego  had 
been  hanged  on  a  very  high  gibbet,1  without  being  permitted  to 
speak  to  the  people,  and  when  some  treacherous  generals  had 
sworn  new  vows  of  fidelity,  did  the  feeble  King  suppose  that  all 
was  set  right,  and  that  affairs  might  now  go  on  as  if  nothing  dis- 
agreeable had  happened.  This  was  a  mistake,  of  course ;  but 
it  was  not  one  to  be  wondered  at.  He  knew  nothing  of  the  prin- 
ciples of  liberty,  and  of  the  vitality  which  resides  in  them ;  and 
he  desired  to  know  as  little  as  possible  of  the  consequences  of 
revolutions.  There  were  some  such  consequences  near  at  hand 
which  soon  compelled  his  notice. 

The  French  ministry  were,2  as  Constant  afterwards  said,  so 
afraid  of  the  result  of  the  invasion  of  Spain,  that,  sustained  as 
they  were  by  the  sympathy  of  almost  all  the  rulers  of  Europe, 
they  would  have  gladly  drawn  back,  at  the  last  moment,  if  the 
leaders  of  the  Spanish  Cortes  would  have  saved  their  honor  by 
some  "  moderate  concessions."  It  is  probable  that  what  the 
French  called  "  moderate  concessions  "  might  appear  to  the  Cortes 
an  unprincipled  and  fatal  yielding.  However  that  may  be,  the 
French  dropped  all  their  timidity  and  doubt  in  the  course  of 
their  sweep  over  Spain  ;  and  we  find  them  next  eager  South 
to  subjugate,  on  behalf  of  Spain,  the  insurgent  colonies  American 
in  South  America.  Mr.  Canning  had  declared  in  Par-  pro1 
liament,  with  a  prospective  view  to  such  a  juncture  as  this,  that 
Great  Britain  would  not  tolerate  any  proposed  cession,  by  Spain 
to  France,  of  any  of  those  colonies  over  which  Spain  had  ceased 
to  have  an  effective  control.  It  could  not  therefore  be  now  per- 
mitted that  France  should  carry  the  war  across  the  Atlantic,  and 
attempt  to  capture  those  colonies  which  Spain  could  not  pretend 
to  be  able  to  cede.  On  this  occasion  the  British  minister  pro- 
nounced words  which  stayed,  like  a  spell,  the  preparations  for 
war  on  one  side  of  the  Atlantic,  while  they  kindled  life  and  hope 
on  the  other,  from  the  sea  to  the  Andes,  and  over  to  the  sea  again. 
"  We  will  not,"  said  Mr.  Canning,  "  interfere  with  Spain  in  any 
attempt  wh'cli  she  may  make  to  reconquer  wlmt  were  once  her 
colonies ;  but  we  will  not  permit  any  third  power  to  attack  or 
reconquer  them  for  her."  It  was  a  proud  position  which  Eng- 
land hfld  when  this  declaration  was  made.  Her  mini>ter  had 
declared  his  desire  that  she  should  hold  a  majestic  station  among 
the  conflicts  of  the  world  ;  "  that,  in  order  to  prevent  things  from 

1  Annuaire  Historique,  1823,  p.  483.  a  Life  of  Mackintosh,  ii.  p.  414. 

VOL.  n.  22 


338  HISTORY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [BOOK  IL 

going  to  extremities,  she  should  keep  a  distinct  middle  ground, 
staying  the  plague  both  ways."  *  Accordingly,  when  some  young 
liberals  in  England  had  been  eager  to  repair  to  certain  of  the 
South  American  colonies,  as  they  were  still  called,  to  throw 
themselves  into  the  combat  for  independence,  Mr.  Canning  had 
brought  in  a  bill  to  stop  their  proceeding,  as  one  wholly  irrecon- 
cilable with  our  relations  with  Spain  ;  manifesting,  however,  very 
plainly,  his  expectation  at  that  time  that  the  colonies  could  not 
fail  to  achieve  their  independence.  He  now  "  stayed  the  plague  " 
on  the  other  side.  He  applied,  in  October,  1823,2to  the  French 
government  for  an  explanation  of  its  intentions  in  rpgard  to  tlie 
South  American  colonies,  in  return  for  a  similar  explanation  from 
England  ;  and  it  was  in  the  course  of  this  correspondence  that 
he  made  the  declaration  quoted  above.  Other  words  of  no 
meaner  weight  were  put  upon  record. 

The  French  minister,  the  Prince  de  Polignac,  declared  3  "  that 
he  could  not  conceive  what  could  be  meant,  under  the  present 
circumstances,  by  a  pure  and  simple  acknowledgment  of  the  in- 
dependence of  the  Spanish  colonies  ;  since,  those  countries  being 
actually  distracted  by  civil  wars,  there  existed  no  government 
in  them  which  could  offer  any  appearance  of  solidity ;  and  that 
the  acknowledgment  of  American  independence,  so  long  as  such 
a  state  of  things  continued,  appeared  to  him  nothing  less  than  a 
real  sanction  of  anarchy That,  in  the  interest  of  human- 
ity, and  especially  in  that  of  the  Spanish  colonies,  it  would  be 
worthy  of  the  European  governments  to  concert  together  the 
means  of  calming,  in  those  distant  and  scarcely  civilized  regions, 
passions  blinded  by  party-spirit ;  and  to  endeavor  to  bring  back 
to  a  principle  of  union  in  government,  whether  monarchical  or 
aristocratical,  people  among  whom  absurd  and  dangerous  theories 
were  now  keeping  up  agitation  and  disunion."  Here  was  the 
principle  and  procedure  of  the  Holy  Alliance  openly  proposed 
for  the  coercion  of  the  South  American  people.  They  were  to 
live,  not  under  such  government  as  they  might  prefer,  but  under 
such  as  the  rulers  of  Europe  should  impose  upon  them  for  their 
good.  The  reply  of  Mr.  Canning  was  short,  but  large  enough  to 
enclose  and  exhibit  his  principle  and  procedure  —  that  none  but 
the  parties  concerned  have  any  business  with  the  form  of  govern- 
ment under  which  any  people  may  choose  to  live  ;  and  that  Great 
Britain  was  equally  ready  to  recognize  institutions  founded  by 
people  and  by  kings.  His  reply  was,4  "  that,  however  desirnMe 
the  establishment  of  a  monarchical  form  of  government  in  any 
of  those  provinces  might  be,  on  the  one  hand,  or  whatever  might 
be  the  difficulties  in  the  way  of  it,  on  the  other  hand,  his  govern- 

1  Life  of  Canning,  p.  334.  a  Hansard,  x.  p.  ~n§. 

a  Ibid.  p.  712  *  Ibid.  p.  712. 


CHAP.  V.]         ATTITUDE   OF  GREAT  BRITAIN.  339 

merit  could  not  take  upon  itself  to  put  it  forward  as  a  condition 
of  their  recognition." 

In  the  preceding  declaration,  it  had  been  announced  to  Spain 
that  consuls  would  be  sent  to  South  America,1  to  protect  the 
interests  of  British  trade  there,  —  a  list  being  furnished  of  the 
places  to  which  they  would  be  sent.  These  consuls  were  now 
appointed  and  despatched  ;  and  this  was  the  decisive  act  by  which 
Gn-at  Britain,  following  the  example  of  the  United  States,  rec- 
ognized the  independence  of  the  South  American  provinces  of 
Spain. 

Calm  and  dignified  as  appears  the  attitude  of  Great  Britain 
throughout  these  transactions,  which  have  so  largely  determined 
the  fortunes  of  the  world,  there  was  much  struggle  within  the 
breast  of  the  Queen  of  the  Seas  —  the  umpire,  as  she  was  now 
made  —  in  the  rivalship,  not  only  of  the  Old  World  and  the  New, 
but  of  the  new  and  the  olden  time.  Her  foreign  minister  spoke 
with  decision  and  clearness  in  all  his  correspondence,  but  it  was 
from  out  of  the  midst  of  turmoil.  He  met  with  almost  as  much 
resistance  at  home  as  abroad  ;  and  he  was  twice  on  the  verge  of 
retiring  from  office,2  before  he  finally  achieved  the  recognition  of 
South  American  independence.  Up  to  this  time,  Lord  Sidmouth 
had  retained  a  seat  in  the  cabinet,  without  office  ;  he  now  resigned 
it,  partly  because  he  could  not  agree  with  those  "  of  his  col- 
leagues 8  who  advocated  the  immediate  recognition  by  His  Majesty 
of  the  independence  of  Buenos  Ayres."  Buenos  Ayres  and  all 
the  other  struggling  provinces  might  now  date  their  declared 
independence  from  this  year ;  and  little  as  they  then  knew,  or 
may  know  now,  how  to  consolidate  their  freedom,  the  proud  boast 
of  the  British  minister  was  a  true  one  which  he  uttered  when, 
two  years  later,  he  gave  an  account  of  his  policy  of  this  time. 
The  speech  is  one  which  ought  to  stand  in  every  history  of  the 
period,  for  its  effect  upon  every  living  mind.  "  It  was  an  era  in 
the  senate,"  says  one,  applying  what  was  said  of  the  eloquence 
of  Chatham.  "  It  was  an  epoch  in  a  man's  life,"  says  another,4 
"  to  have  heard  him.  I  shall  never  forget  the  deep  moral  ear- 
nestness of  his  tone,  and  the  blaze  of  glory  that  seemed  to  light 
up  his  features."  It  having  been  objected  that  the  balance  of 
dignity  and  honor  among  nations  had  been  affected  by  the  French 
occupation  of  Spain,  which  was  thought  to  have  exalted  France 
and  lowered  England,  Mr.  Canning  replied :  5  "  I  must  beg  leave 
to  say  that  I  dissent  from  that  averment.  The  House  knows  — 
the  country  knows  —  that  when  the  French  army  was  on  the 
point  of  entering  Spain,  his  Majesty's  government  did  all  in  their 

1  Hansard,  x.  p.  710.  2  Life  of  Canning,  p  336. 

8  Life  of  Lord  Sidmouth,  iii.  p.  414.  4  Diary  of  an  M.  P. 

•  Hansard,  xvi.  p.  395. 


340  HISTORY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [BOOK  IL 

power  to  prevent  it ;  that  we  resisted  it^by  all  means  short  of 
war.  I  have  just  now  stated  some  of  the  reasons  why  w.e  did 
not  think  the  entry  of  that  army  into  Spain  a  sufficient  ground 
for  war ;  but  there  was,  in  addition  to  those  which  I  have  stated, 
this  peculiar  reason,  that  whatever  effect  a  war,  commenced  upon 
the  mere  ground  of  the  entry  of  a  French  army  into  Spain, 
might  have,  it  probably  would  not  have  had  the  effect  of  getting 
that  army  out  of  Spain.  Jn  a  war  against  France  at  that  time, 
as  at  any  other,  you  might,  perhaps,  have  acquired  military  glory  ; 
you  might,  perhaps,  have  extended  your  colonial  possessions  ; 
you  might  even  have  achieved,  at  great  cost  of  blood  and  treasure, 
an  honorable  peace  ;  but,  as  to  getting  the  French  out  of  Spain, 
that  would  have  been  the  one  object  which  you  almost  certainly 
would  not  have  accomplished.  How  seldom,  in  the  whole  history 
of  the  wars  of  Europe,  has  any  war  between  two  great  powers 
ended  in  the  obtaining  of  the  exact,  the  identical  object  for  which 
the  war  was  begun  !  Besides,  sir,  I  contess  I  think  that  the 
effects  of  the  French  occupation  of  Spain  have  been  inh'niiely 
exaggerated.  I  do  not  blame  those  exaggerations,  because  I  am 
aware  that  they  are  to  be  attributed  to  the  recollections  of  some 
of  the  best  times  of  our  history  ;  that  they  are  the  echoes  of  sen- 
timents which,  in  the  days  of  William  and  of  Anne,  animated 
the  debates,  and  dictated  the  votes  of  the  British  Parliament. 
No  peace  was  in  those  days  thought  safe  for  this  country  while 
the  crown  of  Spain  continued  on  the  head  of  a  Bourbon.  But 
were  not  the  apprehensions  of  those  days  greasly  overstated ? 
Has  the  power  of  Spain  swallowed  up  the  power  of  maritime 
England?  Or  does  England  still  remain,  after  the  lapse  of  more 
than  a  century,  during  which  the  crown  of  Spain  has  been  worn 
by  a  Bourbon,  niched  in  a  nook  of  that  same  Spain  —  Gibraltar  ? 
....  Again,  sir,  is  the  Spain  of  the  present  day  the  Spain 
....  whose  puissance  was  expected  to  shake  England  from  her 
sphere  ?  No,  sir  ;  it  was  quite  another  Spain ;  it  was  the  Spain 
within  the  limits  of  whose  empire  the  sun  never  set ;  it  was 
Spain  '  with  the  Indies  '  that  excited  the  jealousies,  and  alarmed 
the  imaginations  of  our  ancestors.  But  then,  sir,  the  balance  of 
power!  The  entry  of  the  French  army  into  Spain  disturbed 
that  balance,  and  we  ought  to  have  gone  to  war  to  restore  it ! 
I  have  already  said  that  when  the  French  army  entered  Spain, 
we  might,  if  we  chose,  have  resisted  or  resented  that  measure  by 
war.  But  were  there  no  other  means  than  war  tor  restoring  the 
balance  of  power  ?  Js  the  balance  of  power  a  fixed  and  unalter- 
able standard  ?  or  is  it  not  a  standard  perpetually  varying,  as 
civilization  advances,  and  as  new  nations  spring  up,  and  take 
their  place  among  established  political  communities?  The  bal- 
ance of  power,  a  century  and  a  half  ago,  was  to  be  adjusted 


CHAP.  V.]     CANNING'S  ACCOUNT   OF  HIS  POLICY.  341 

between  France  and  Spain,  the  Netherlands,  Austria,  and  Eng- 
land. Some  years  afterwards,  Russia  assumed  her  high  station 
in  European  politics.  Some  years  after  that  again,  Prussia  be- 
came, not  only  a  substantive,  but  a  preponderating  monarchy. 
Thus,  while  the  balance  of  power  continued  in  principle  the 
same,  the  means  of  adjusting  it  became  more  varied  and  enlarged. 
They  became  enlarged  in  proportion  to  the  increased  number  of 
considerable  states  —  in  proportion,  I  may  say,  to  the  number 
of  weights  which  might  be  shifted  into  the  one  or  the  other  scale. 
To  look  to  the  policy  of  Europe,  in  the  times  of  William  and  Anne, 
for  the  purpose  of  regulating  the  balance  of  power  in  Ekirope  at 
the  present  day,  is  to  disregard  the  progress  of  events,  and  to 
confuse  dates  and  facts  which  throw  a  reciprocal  light  upon  each 
other.  It  would  be  disingenuous,  indeed,  not  to  admit  that  the 
entry  of  the  French  army  into  Spain  was,  in  a  certain  sense,  a 
dispnragement  —  an  affront  to  the  pride  —  a  blow  to  the  feelings 
of  England ;  and  it  can  hardly  be  supposed  that  the  government 
did  not  sympathize,  on  that  occasion,  with  the  feelings  of  the 
people.  But  I  deny  that,  questionable  or  censurable  as  the  act 
might  be,  it  was  one  which  necessarily  called  for  our  direct  and 
hostile  opposition.  Was  nothing  then  to  be  done  ?  Was  there 
no  other  mode  of  resistance  than  by  a  direct  attack  upon  France  ; 
or  by  a  war  to  be  undertaken  on  the  soil  of  Spain?  What  if 
the  possession  of  Spain  might  be  rendered  harmless  in  rival 
hands  —  harmless  as  regarded  us  —  and  valueless  to  the  possess- 
ors ?  Might  not  compensation  for  disparagement  be  obtained,  and 
the  policy  of  our  ancestors  vindicated,  by  means  better  adapted 
to  the  present  time  ?  If  France  occupied  Spain,  was  it  necessary, 
in  order  to  avoid  the  consequences  of  that  occupation,  that  we 
should  blockade  Cadiz  ?  —  No.  I  looked  another  way.  I  sought 
materials  of  compensation  in  another  hemisphere.  Contemplat- 
ing Spain,  such  as  our  ancestors  had  known  her,  I  resolved  that 
if  France  had  Spain,  it  should  not  be  Spain  '  with  the  Indies.' 
I  called  the  New  World  into  existence,  to  redress  the  balance  of 
the  Old." 

In  this  celebrated  speech,  Mr.  Canning  appears  to  take  his 
stand  where  lie  avowed  his  wish  that  his  country  should  stand  — 
<k  not  only  between  contending  nations,  but  between  conflicting 
principles."  If  we  find  in  it  a  spirit  higher  than  that  of  the 
allied  potentates  who  would  have  ruled  both  hemispheres  after 
the  pattern  of  their  antiquated  ideas,  we  find  in  it  also  a  tone 
lower  than  that  of  sympathy  with  the  struggles  for  freedom  which 
yet  it  was  his  policy  to  aid.  When,  as  a  listener  tells  us,1 "  his 
chest  heaved  and  expanded,  his  nostril  dilated,  a  noble  pride 
slightly  curled  his  lip,  and  age  and  sickness  were  forgotten  in 
the  ardor  of  youthful  genius,"  it  must  have  been  the  conscious- 
l  Diary  of  an  M.  P. 


342  HISTORY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [BOOK  II. 

ness  of  power  and  of  the  soundness  of  his  policy  which  inspired 
him  ;  for  he  was  certainly  not,  by  his  own  profession,  under  the 
sway  of  emotions  so  lofty  as  the  occasion  created  in  others.  It 
may  be,  however,  that  his  sentiments  were  loftier  than  his  pro- 
fessions. "  All  the  while,"  says  the  observer,  "  a  serenity  sat  upon 
his  brow  that  pointed  to  deeds  of  glory."  The  deeds  were  glori- 
ous, however  the  doer  may  have  assigned  reasons  of  mere  policy 
for  them  in  an  assembly  which  he  could  so  sway  as  that  they 
would  have  borne  from  him  expressions  of  a  higher  political 
generosity.  Perhaps  he  remembered  how  many  were  watching 
afar  to  catch  up  his  words  —  the  Holy  Allies  for  their  purposes, 
and  many  an  eager  malcontent  for  his  ;  and  this  may  have  made 
him  careful,  in  the  midst  of  his  emotions,  to  preserve  his  central 
stand  between  the  imperial  policies  and  the  popular  enthusiasms 
of  the  time.  If  so,  he  spoke  wisely  and  well  for  such  listeners, 
not  only  in  his  expositions  of  his  principles  and  methods  of  peace, 
of  non-interference,  and  of  recognition  of  de  facto  powers,  whatever 
their  origin  and  date,  but  he  offered  them,  in  the  course  of  the 
same  chapter  of  events,  a  warning  and  a  prophecy  which  has  never 
been  forgotten  since,  and  is  little  likely  to  be  forgotten  now. 

The  occasion  was  the  arrival  of  intelligence  that  Spain  was 
Appeal  from  interfering  with  Portugal,  whose  free  constitution 
Portugal.  was  hated  and  feared  by  the  restored  despot  Fer- 
dinand. Mr.  Canning  had  formerly  declared  what  our  relations 
with  Portugal  were.  If  she  chose  to  underlake  any  war  on  her 
own  account,  for  the  defence  of  freedom  or  any  other  cause, 
Great  Britain  had  nothing  to  do  with  that ;  but,  if  she  were  at- 
tacked on  account  of  her  constitutional  freedom,  or  for  any  other 
cause,  Great  Britain  was  bound  by  treaties,  and  by  every  obliga- 
tion of  good  faith,  to  repair  to  her  assistance.  Such  a  case  had 
arisen  now — in  December,  1826.  Some  Portuguese  regiments 
had  deserted  to  the  royalist  cause  in  Spain.  The  Spanish  gov- 
ernment had  repeatedly  pledged  itself  to  disarm  and  disperse 
these  regiments  ;  but  it  failed  to  do  so,  and  permitted  these  regi- 
ments to  make  hostile  inroads  into  Portugal,  under  the  eyes  of 
the  Spanish  authorities,  and  with  every  tacit  assistance  from 
them.  On  the  night  of  Friday,  the  8th  of  December,  the  Brit- 
ish government  received  from  the  Princess  Regent  of  Portugal 
an  earnest  application1  for  "aid  against  a  hostile  aggression  from 
Spain  "  ;  and  the  minister,  whose  first  principle  of  administration 
had  been  the  preservation  of  peace,  was  as  prompt  in  action  as 
if  he  had  been  eager  for  war.  His  own  account  of  the  affair  is 
the  shortest,  plainest,  and  clearest.  Short  and  plain  as  it  is,  it 
moved  the  heart  of  his  immediate  hearers  first,  and  then  of  the 
nation,  to  an  enthusiasm  which  will  never  be  forgotten  by  those 
who  lived  at  the  time.  "  On  Sunday,  the  third  of  this  mouth,2 
i  Hansard,  xvi.  p.  334.  2  Ibid.  p.  357. 


CHAP.  V.]  PROTECTION  OF  PORTUGAL.  343 

we  received  from  the  Portuguese  ambassador  a  direct  and  formal 
demand  of  assistance  against  a  hostile  aggression  from  Spain. 
Our  answer  was,  that,  although  rumors  had  reached  us,  through 
France,  liis  Majesty's  government  had  not  that  accurate  informa- 
tion —  that  official  and  precise  intelligence  of  facts  —  on  which 
they  could  properly  found  an  application  to  Parliament.  It  was 
only  on  last  Friday  night  that  this  precise  information  arrived. 
On  Saturday,  his  Majesty's  confidential  servants  came  to  a  decision. 
On  Sunday,  that  decision  received  the  sanction  of  His  Majesty. 
On  Monday,  it  was  communicated  to  both  Houses  of  Parliament ; 
and  this  day,  sir,  —  at  the  hour  in  which  I  have  the  honor  of  ad- 
dressing you,  —  the  troops  are  on  their  march  for  embarkation." 
There  may  be  some  wonder  in  Englishmen's  minds  at  this  day, 
as  there  certainly  is  in  the  minds  of  some  foreigners,  that  this 
procedure  and  its  explanation  should  have  excited  the  enthusiasm 
that  it  did  in  the  House  and  the  nation.  It  may  be  said,  truly 
enough,  that  the  Portuguese  are  but  two  or  three  millions  of 
priests  and  slaves,  who  have  thus  far  incessantly  shown  them- 
selves incapable  of  freedom  ;  and  that  their  alliance  can  never 
be  of  material  advantage  to  England,  for  purposes  of  commerce 
or  any  otlier  fellowship.  All  this  may  be  true;  and  yet  there 
may  be  still  feelings  in  the  national  heart  regarding  Portugal 
which  might  account  for  the  enihusiasm  of  the  t.me.  The  very 
discussion  of  our  alliance  with  Portugal  carries  back  the  imagi- 
nation to  i  he- time  of  Charles  II.,  when  we  became  possessed  of 
Bom  iay,  and  when  our  government  declared,  in  the  affectionate 
style  of  ancient  treaties  i1  '*  The  King  of  Great  Britain  does  pro- 
fess and  declare,  with  the  consent  and  advice  of  his  council,  that 
he  will  take  the  interest  of  Portugal  and  all  its  dominions  to 
heart,  defending  the  same  with  his  utmost  power,  by  sea  and 
land,  even  as  England  itself."  There  were  remembrances  of  the 
treaties  of  Queen  Anne's  time,  and  the  watch  then  to  be  kept 
against  Spain  and  France,  as  now.  The  very  words,  "  our  an- 
cient and  faithful  ally,"  always  used  when  our  relations  with  Por- 
tugal are  spoken  of,  siir  a  sentiment  in  her  favor.  Again,  there 
was  i  he  generous  complacency  felt  by  the  strong  when  appealed 
to  by  the  weak  —  the  obligation  being,  in  thi>  case,  not  to  disap- 
point the  generous  sentimi-nt,  because  our  good  faith  was  engaged 
on  i  he  side  of  the  appeal.  Again,  though  the  rational  and  firm 
desire  or  the  British  government  and  the  majority  of  the  people 
had  been  to  preserve  peace  during  the  last  anxious  and  troubled 
years,  when  despotism  and  revolution  were  everywhere  in  con- 
flict, it  had  cost  not  a  little  to  generous  hearts,  and  also  to  minds 
not  yet  disenchanted  from  the  spells  of  war,  to  refrain  from  rush- 
ing into  conflict,  and  bringing  the  opposition  of  principles  and 
1  Hansard,  xvi.  p.  355. 


344  HISTORY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [Boo*  H. 

prejudices  to  the  arbitrament  of  battle.  Mr.  Brougham  had  said 
that  u  Great  Britain  was  bound  over  in  recognizances  of 
800,000,0007.  to  keep  the  peace  "  ;  and  this  consideration  —  of 
debt  and  exhaustion  —  availed  while  there  was  no  strong  im- 
pulse in  a  contrary  direction.  But  the  moment  that  the  move- 
ment of  troops  became  a  movement  of  good  faith  and  gen- 
erosity, the  spirit  of  the  nation  broke  through  its  restraints  of 
prudence,  and  its  silence  of  neutrality ;  and  the  minister's  an- 
nouncement of  the  transmission  of  troops  to  Portugal  was  re- 
ceived with  acclamations  which  shook  the  world.  The  troops 
anchored  in  the  Tagus  on  the  25th  of  the  same  month ; 1  but  they 
were  not  wanted.  The  winged  darts  of  the  minister,  his  burn- 
ing words,  had  done  the  necessary  work  with  the  speed  of  the 
winds.  The  revolted  regiments  slunk  away  from  the  frontier, 
and  were  dissolved.  The  French  agent  at  Madrid  stole  away 
home ;  and  King  Ferdinand  was  profuse  in  his  assurances  of 
hatred  of  any  power  which  would  molest  Portugal  More  than 
that:  this  speech  was  one  which  no  censorship  could  exclude, 
or  delay  on  its  passage  to  those  whom  it  concerned.  The  news- 
papers passed  from  baud  to  hand  under  the  Spanish  cloak ;  reci- 
tations of  the  Englishman's  words  went  on  in  whispers  under  the 
bright  Italian  moon ;  and  at  Vienna  and  Warsaw,  men's  hearts 
swelled  and  their  eyes  shone  as  phrases  from  this  speech  were 
detected  in  common  intercourse,  and  forthwith  formed  a  sort 
Hew  en  of  of  freemasonry  among  those  who  understood.  The 
««>«***•  power  lay  in  the  warning  and  the  prophecy  which  we 
mentioned  above,  and  which  we  he  re  present  —  the  warning  and 
prophecy  of  a  war  of  opinion  in  Europe.  After  referring  to  his 
desire  and  maintenance  of  peace,  when  the  French  entered  Spain 
four  years  before,  Mr.  Canning  proceeded : a  **  I  then  said  that  I 
feared  that  the  next  war  which  should  be  kindled  in  Europe 
•would  be  a  war,  not  so  much  of  armies  as  of  opinions.  Not  tour 
years  have  elapsed,  and  behold  my  apprehensions  realized !  It 
is,  to  be  sure,  within  narrow  limits  that  this  war  of  opinion  is  at 
present  confined ;  but  it  is  a  war  of  opinion  that  Spain,  whether 
as  government  or  as  nation,  is  now  waging  against  Portugal ;  it  is 
a  war  which  has  commenced  in  hatred  of  the  new  institutions  of 
Portugal.  How  long  is  it  reasonable  to  expect  that  Portugal 
will  abstain  from  retaliation  ?  If  into  that  war  this  country  shall 
be  compelled  to  enter,  we  shall  enter  into  it  with  a  sincere  and 
anxious  desire  to  mitigate  rather  than  exasperate  ;  and  to  mingle 
only  in  the  conflict  of  arms  —  not  in  the  more  fatal  conHict  of 
opinions.  But  I  much  fear  that  this  country,  however  earnestly 
she  may  endeavor  to  avoid  it,  could  not,  in  such  a  case,  avoid 
seeing  ranked  under  her  banners  all  the  restless  and  dissatisfied 
i  Annual  Register,  1826,  p.  342.  *  Hansard,  xvi.  p.  368. 


CHAP.  V.]    DEATH  OF  THE   KING  OF  PORTUGAL.  345 

of  any  nation  with  which  she  might  come  in  conflict.  It  is  the 
contemplation  of  this  new  power  in  any  future  war  which  ex- 
cites my  most  anxious  apprehension.  It  is  one  thing  to  have  a 
giant's  strength ;  but  it  would  be  another  to  use  it  like  a  giant. 
The  consciousness  of  such  strength  is,  undoubtedly,  a  source  of 
confidence  and  security;  but  in  the  situation  in  which  this  coun- 
try stands,  our  business  is  not  to  seek  opportunities  of  displaying 
it.  but  to  content  ourselves  with  letting  the  professors  of  violent 
and  exaggerated  docirines  on  both  sides  feel  that  it  is  not  their 
interest  10  convert  an  umpire  into  an  adversary.''  After  describ- 
ing the  position  of  England  MS  keeping  in  check  the  passions  of 
the  world,  and  the  horror  of  the  scene  if  she  were  to  descend 
from  her  po-t  of  arbitrament  to  lead  the  conflict,  he  continued : 
"This,  then,  is  the  reason  —  a  reason  very  different  from  fear  — 
the  reverse  of  a  consciousness  of  disability  —  why  I  dread  the  re- 
currence of  hostilities  in  any  part  of  Europe;  why  I  would  bear 
much,  and  would  forbear  long;  why  I  would,  as  I  have  snid,  put 
up  with  almo-t  anything  that  did  not  touch  national  faith  and 
national  honor,  rather  than  let  slip  the  furies  of  war,  the  leash  of 
which  \ve  hold  in  our  hands,  not  knowing  whom  they  may  rea;-h, 
or  how  far  I  heir  ravages  may  be  carried.  Such  is  the  love  of 
peace  which  the  British  government  acknowledges  ;  and  such  the 
necessity  for  peace  which  the  circumstances  of  the  world  incul- 
cate. I  will  push  these  topics  no  further." 

There  was  indeed  no  need  to  push  these  topics  further. 
Enough  was  said.  From  this  moment  it  was  understood  through- 
out the,  world  that  whenever  "the  war  of  opinion  in  Europe" 
should  involve  Great  Britain,  the  aspirants  to  political  freedom 
would  be  on  her  side.  It  was  now  clear  —  clear  to  all  sovereigns 
and  to  all  people  —  that  England  had  completely  separated  her- 
self from  the  Holy  Alliance.  Her  foreign  minister  ha<l  carried 
out  his  main  principle  —  the  preservation  of  peace  ;  and  achieved 
the  great  practical  purpose  which  lay  nearest  to  it  —  the  destruc- 
tion of  the  Holy  Alliance.  These  four  years  were  a  short  time 
in  which  to  have  secured  such  objects,  and  to  have  placed  such  a 
fame  as  his  on  its  pinnacle. 

During  those  four  years,  a  few  events  had  happened  among  our 
foreign  allies,  which  it  is  necessary  briefly  to  refer  to.    The  Prin- 
cess Regent  of  Portugal   has  been  mentioned,  in  the   Dcath  of 
place  of  the  old  King  John  VI.     That  feeble  king  had    John  vt.  of 
for  a  wife  the  sister  of  the  Spanish  King  Ferdinand  ;   F 
and  for  a  son  —  the  second  son  —  the  notorious    Don  Miguel, 
who  has  since  so  pertinaciously  troubled  the  repose  of  his  own 
and  other  countries.     This  wife  and  son,  in  the  spring  of  1*24, 
imprisoned  and  threatened  the  King,  who  was  obliged  to  throw 
himself  upon  the  protection  of  the  English,  and  to  escape  from 


346  •  mSTORY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [BOOK  II. 

his  own  family  on  board  a  British  vessel  in  the  Tagtis.1  Miguel 
was  sent  away  on  his  travels,  and  the  King  reinstated.  A  year 
afterwards,  the  King  acknowledged  the  independence  of  his  great 
South  American  province  of  Brazil.2  Ten  months  afterwards  he 
died  ; 3  and  his  eldest  son,  Don  Pedro,  who  had  for  a  year  been 
c  ,  Emperor  of  Brazil,  must  now  choose  whether  to  re- 

Portugai  main  so,  or  to  return  to  Portugal  as  its  king.  The 
and  Brani.  cno;ce  between  the  two  crowns  was  his.  He  chose  to 
remain  on  his  western  throne  ;  but  he  did  what  he  could  to  influ- 
ence the  affairs  of  the  European  kingdom.  He  abdicated  the 
Portuguese  throne  in  favor  of  his  eldest  daughter ;  and  he  sent 
over  with  her  a  constitution  for  Portugal.  It  was  this  constitu- 
tion which  enraged  the  French  and  Spanish  courts,  and  caused 
the  inroads  upon  Portugal  which  the  British  troops  were  sent  to 
repel.  The  Princess  Regent  mentioned  above  was  the  sister  of 
the  Emperor  of  Brazil,  who,  under  her  father's  will,  administered 
the  affairs  of  Portugal  till  her  young  niece  could  enter  upon  her 
dignity  and  her  function.  When  Mr.  Canning's  great  speech  was 
made,  then,  King  John  VI.  had  been  dead  some  months ;  Don 
Pedro  was  on  the  throne  of  Brazil ;  Don  Miguel  was  on  his 
travels,  caballing  wherever  he  went ;  and  their  sister  Isabella 
was  Princess  Regent  of  Portugal,  ruling  the  country  in  the  name 
of  the  infant  queen,  and  according  to  the  constitution  sent  over 
by  Don  Pedro. 

Other  sovereigns  had  died  —  had  slipped  out  of  the  Holy 
Death  of  the  -Alliance  on  the  inexorable  summons  of  death,  when 
ex- King  of  they  would  not  attend  to  that  of  freedom.  The  ex- 
im'  King  of  Sardinia,  Emanuel  Victor,  was  no  longer  a 
European  potentate ;  but  he  had  been  conspicuous  in  the  earlier 
meetings  of  the  allies.  He  died  in  January,  1824,  leaving  his 
brother,  Charles  Felix,  on  the  throne.  In  September  of  the 
of  the  King  same  year  died  the  King  of  France,  after  enjoying  his 
of  France;  restored  royalty  fourteen  years.  His  had  been  the 
unhappy  lot  to  suffer  adversity  without  being  able  to  profit  by  it. 
Neither  reverses  nor  restoration  yielded  any  privilege  of  wisdom 
to  him.  His  accession  was  as  nothing  to  the  world,  and  his  death 
was  nothing,  except  that  he  left  his  throne  to  be  occupied  by  a 
brother  yet  more  unenlightened,  and  more  despotic  in  his  ten- 
of  the  King  dencies,  than  himself.  The  "  Nestor  "  of  the  Verona 
or  Naples  Congre-s,  Ferdinand  of  Naples  and  Sicily,  followed 
:ily'  his  relative  of  Sardinia  in  a  year.  The  Duchess  de 
Bi'rri  was  his  grandchild :  one  daughter  was  wife  to  the  King  of 
Sardinia;  another  to  the  Duke  of  Orleans,  whereby  she  became 
Queen  of  the  French  five  years  after  her  father's  death.  The  King 
of  Naples  died  of  apoplexy  ;  and  the  manner  in  which  his  death  is 
1  Annual  Register,  1824,  p.  186.  2  ibid.  1825,  p.  174.  «  ibid.  1826.  p.  314. 


CHAP.  V.J       DEATH  OF  ALEXANDER   OF  RUSSIA.  347 

notified  indicates  the  ideas  which  beset  the  death-beds  of  kings 
who  live  in  dread  of  revolutions.  "The  nuncio,  the  ambassador 
from  Spain,  the  Austrian  minister,  and  the  French  charge 
d'affaires,  were  introduced,  with  all  the  council,  into  the  chamber 
of  the  King.  His  Majesty  was  lying  on  his  back,  with  his  mouth 
open,  but  his  features  unaltered  ;  the  left  hand,  which  was  un- 
covered, showed  some  marks  of  extravasated  blood.  The  guards 
at  the  palace,  and  other  public  places,  were  doubled,  as  a  meas- 
ure of  precaution,  but  the  public  tranquillity  was  not  disturbed 
for  a  single  moment."  1 

This  could  not  be  said  on  occasion  of  the  death  of  a  more 
prominent  member  of  the  alliance  than  this  Verona  peathofthe 
Nestor.  On  the  1st  of  December  of  this  year,  1825,  Emperor  of 
Alexander  of  Russia  died,  far  away  from  his  capital  B 
and  his  northern  court.'2  Some  believe  that  he  determined  to 
pass  the  winter  in  the  south,  became  he  knew  himself  to  be 
hemmed  in  by  conspirators  at  St.  Petersburg.  However  that 
may  be,  he  died  of  fever  on  a  lofty  cliff  overlooking  a  vast  ex- 
panse of  the  Black  Sea,  while  his  successor  was  in  imminent  peril 
from  a  plot  so  extensive,  that  it  was  necessary  to  hush  the  matter 
up  as  speedily  as  possible  ;  and  so  mysterious,  that,  to  this  day, 
nothing  is  clearly  understood  about  it  in  the  world.  Whether 
Alexander  would  have  lived  long,  and  ruled  as  he  chose,  if  he 
had  escaped  the  fever  which  cut  him  off  at  Taganrog,  there  is  no 
saying.  There  is  every  appearance  of  his  having  ruled  as  he 
chose  up  to  the  time  of  his  last  illness.  What  he  chose  was  a 
benevolent  method.  What  he  lacked  was  a  sense  and  knowledge 
of  justice.  He  was  not  even  aware  that  benevolence  may  oper- 
ate as  cruelty  when  it  is  not  enlightened  and  guided  by  a  princi- 
ple of  justice.  Alexander  will  not  appear  to  posterity  altogether 
as  the  bland,  kindly,  courteous  Christian  gentleman  that  he  be- 
lieved himself,  and  that  he  sincerely  meant  to  be.  He  was  bland, 
kindly,  courteous,  and  a  religious  gentleman  ;  but  he  was  a  ped- 
ant in  intellect,  and  an  oppressor  on  the  throne.  Nobody  wept 
for  him,  even  while  there  was  fear  that  his  savage  brother  Con- 
stantine  would  succeed  him.  The  savage  was,  however,  induced 
to  set  himself  aside,  —  a  wonderfully  enlightened  act,  such  as 
some  who  are  not  Calibans  are  incapable  of.  The  younger  brother 
Nicholas  succeeded,  and  walked  up  the  steps  of  the  throne  amidst 
a  thousand  daggers  pointed  at  his  breast.  How  he  charmed  them 
down,  and  how  he  made  terms  witli  those  who  held  them,  no  one 
knows. 

Thus  would  the  Holy  Alliance  have  been  already  decimated, 
if  Canning  had  not  before  virtually  dispersed  the  assembly.  Soon 
after  the  arch-enemy,  Napoleon,  was  in  his  grave ;  Londonderry 
i  Annual  Register,  1825.     Chron.  p.  218.  2  Ibid.  p.  158. 


348  HISTORY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [BOOK  IL 

followed,  and  carried  with  him  the  fate  of  the  compact.  Now, 
five  of  the  sovereigns  had  slipped  away  ;  and  a  plebeian  man 
had  arisen,  who  was  too  strong  for  all  that  were  gone  and  allth;it 
remained.  Here,  then,  we  may  drop  all  mention  of  the  Holy 
Alliance. 

It  has  been  related  that  when  the  Verona  Congress  was  sum- 
Affairs  of  moned,  the  business  proposed  for  its  consideration  was 
a  consultation  on  the  affairs  of  Greece.  As  it  turned 
out,  the  subject  of  Greece  was  scarcely  mentioned  at  that  con- 
gress ;  which  was  occupied  with  the  then  secret  topic  of  the  French 
intentions  towards  .Spain.  The  British  min  ster's  mind,  however, 
was  not  the  less  open  to  Greek  interests.  In  his  youth  he  had 
written  a  poem  on  Greece  —  a  lament  on  it-  slavery  ;  and  when 
the  extensive  Greek  insurrection  in  1821  seemed  to  open  a  pros- 
pect of  liberty,  no  heart  beat  higher  with  hope  and  sympathy 
than  his.  He  was,  like  a  multitude  of  others,  sanguine  about  the 
ability,  physical  and  moral,  of  the  Greeks  to  accomplish  and 
maintain  their  independence.  His  duty  as  a  minister,  however, 
had  to  be  considered  before  his  predilections  as  a  man.  He  ad- 
British  hered  firmly  to  the  principles  on  which  he  conducted 

policy.  n|s  government  in  other  cases.     He  preserved  peace 

on  the  continent  by  strict  neutrality  in  regard  to  the  war  in 
Eastern  Europe  ;  lie  enforced  this  neutral  ty  by  restraining  indi- 
viduals from  rushing  to  Greece,  to  fight  against  Turkey ;  while 
he  used  all  the  power  of  his  po  ition  to  influence  Turkey  favora- 
bly, and  to  soften  the  horrors  of  the  war.1  His  countenance  was 
on  the  side  of  liberty ;  and  he  was  already  pondering  a  scheme, 
which  he  carried  out  in  a  subsequent  year,  for  the  protection  of 
Greece  against  the  destructive  violence  of  her  foe,  while  yet 
strictly  enforcing  his  policy  of  non-interference  with  any  affairs 
of  other  states  in  which  Great  Britain  was  not,  as  a  state,  in- 
volved. Turkey  had  the  same  claim  to  the  possession  of  Greece 
that  any  other  state  has  to  its  conquered  dependencies  ;  and  how- 
ever the  sympathy  of  the  enlightened  world  miirht  be  with  the 
insurgent  Greeks,  no  government  had  a  right  to  interfere  with 
European  the  possessions  of  Turkey.  Every  assistance  but 
sympathy.  polit  cal  aid  was,  however,  freely  offered  throughout 
Europe.  Kings  and  people  subscribed  money  for  the  redemption 
of  Greek  captives,  and  the  support  of  Greek  outcasts  ;2  and,  in 
spite  of  all  prohibitions  of  governments,  many  volunteers  from 
France,  England,  Italy,  and  Germany  went  to  fight  under  the 
Greek  leaders.  Our  own  Byron  perished  in  the  cau.-e  —  laid 
low  by  fatigue  and  fever  before  Missolonghi.  The  accomplished 
and  beloved  Santa  Rosa,  who  had  failed  in  the  struggle  to  free 
his  own  Piedmont  from  Austrian  rule,  gave  h  s  efforts,  and  pres- 
i  Annual  Register,  1826,  p.  370.  2  Ibid.  p.  368. 


CHAP.  V.J  LAST  WAR  WITH  ALGIERS.  349 

ently  his  life,  to  the  Greek  cause.  At  that  time  the  cause  ap- 
peared desperate;  and  its  misfortunes  were  cruelly  aggravated 
by  the  disappointment  of  hopes  held  out  from  England  of  supplies 
of  money  and  steamboats.  Perhaps  the  less  said  the  better  of 
the  Greek  loan  negotiated  in  London  in  1825,  except  that  such 
incidents  ought  to  yield  their  full  lesson  to  future  times,  when 
similar  occasions  may  occur.  We  are  disposed  to  believe  that 
the  business  was  originally  undertaken  with  a  true  heartiness  in 
the  Greek  cause  —  with  an  enthusiasm  which  carried  some  par- 
ties beyond  their  calculations,  and  a  due  consideration  of  their 
•  means  ;  and  this  kind  of  inconsiderateness  is  too  likely  to  induce 
a  reaction  of  selfish  care,  under  which  the  pretension  of  benevo- 
lence and  a  love  of  liberty  becomes  a  mockery.  Thus  it  was  in 
the  matter  of  the  Greek  loan  in  London,  which  yielded  even  less 
of  credit  to  the  managing  parties  in  England  than  of  money  to 
the  Greeks.  Amidst  the  flow  and  ebb  of  sentiment  and  action 
among  private  parties  in  England,1  the  government  steadily  held 
its  position  of  neutrality,  giving  its  endeavors  in  aid  of  humanity, 
and  its  undisguised  good  wishes  to  the  Greek  insurgents. 

It  has  been  told'2  how  complete  was  the  humiliation  of  Algiers 
in  1816,  and  how  a  thousand  and  eighty  Christian  slaves  Last  war 
rushed  from  the  interior  to  the  shore,  and  from  the  shore  Wlth  Alsier3- 
into  the  boats,  esc  iping  from  what  they  called  "  a  second  hell,"  to 
the  British  ships  which  were  to  carry  them  home.  The  victory 
appeared  complete  ;  but  victors  never  know  when  they  have  done 
with  such  an  enemy  as  the  piratical  State  of  Algiers  then  was. 
Another  quarrel  arose  in  January,  1824.3  Captain  Spencer  was 
sent  with  two  British  vessels  to  arrange  a  dispute  between  the 
Dey  of  Algiers  and  the  English  consul,  Mr.  Macdonald.  On  his 
arrival,  Captain  Sjiencer  found  two  Spanish  vessels  in  the  Mole, 
recently  captured,  whose  crews  were  made  slaves  of.  Of  course, 
the  liberty  of  these  Spaniards  was  demanded,  under  the  treaty 
made  with  Lord  Exmouth.  No  answer  arriving  in  four  days, 
Captain  Spencer  began  to  fear  for  the  safety  of  the  Europeans 
on  shore  ;  and,  under  a  pretext  of  giving  them  an  entertainment, 
he  got  them  all  on  board  o:ie  of  his  ships,  while  the  other 
engaged  the  piratical  vessel  which  had  captured  the  Spaniards, 
took  it,  and  set  free  seventeen  Spaniards  who  were  found  on 
board.  War  against  Algiers  was  declared ;  and  a  squadron 
under  Sir  H.  Neale's  command  appeared  before  the  town  on  the 
24th  of  July.  While  waiting  for  a  wind,  the  British  com- 
mander received  a  message  from  the  Dey,  requesting  negotiation. 
The  negotiations  gave  little  trouble,  for  the  Dey  was  submissive. 
He  engaged  that  no  more  European  prisoners  of  war  should  bo 

i  Report  on  Greek  Loan.      Annual        2  Ante.     Book  I.  ch.  6. 
Register,  1826,  pp.  374,  375.  »  Annual  Register,  1824,  p.  207. 


350  HISTORY   OF   THE   PEACE.  [BOOK  II. 

made  slaves  of,  but  that  they  should  be  treated  with  all  humanity, 
and  regarded  as  prisoners  of  war  are  in  Europe.  Here  Great 
Britain  closed  accounts  with  Algiers,  as  it  presently  ceased  to  ex- 
ist as  an  African  State.  A  dispute  arising  between  ihe  Algerine 
government  and  the  French  in  1827,  France  sent  forth  a  power 
which  conquered  Algiers,  and  in  1830  made  it  a  French  colony. 

While  Algiers  was  thus  called  to  account,  a  little  war  was 
Ashantee  proceeding  on  another  part  of  the  African  coast,  which 
war.  Drought  nothing  but  disaster  and  shame  to  the  British 

engaged  in  it.  Since  the  beginning  of  the  century,  the  Ashantee 
nation  liad  been  rising  in  importance  by  conquest.1  The  succes- 
sive British  governors  af  Cape  Coast  Castle  had  not  preserved 
a  steady  course  of  policy  with  the  Ashantees  and  Fan  tees :  they 
had  changed  sides,  and  broken  faith  ;  and  now  the  settlement 
was  to  receive  the  natural  retribution.  These  governors  had 
been  appointed  by  the  African  Company,  whose  settlements 
were  all  assumed  by  the  British  government  in  1821.  In  1822, 
Sir  Charles  M'Carthy  was  sent  out  as  governor-in-t-hief  of  all 
the  settlements  which  had  belonged  to  the  Company ;  and  he 
presently  found  that  he  had  the  Company's  Ashantee  war  upon 
his  hands.  He  seems  to  have  been  wholly  unskilled  in  African 
warfare.  The  nai'rative  of  the  events  of  1824  *  is  a  dismal  story 
of  mistakes  and  misadventures ;  of  reliance  on  native  auxiliaries, 
who  failed  in  every  possible  way  on  all  occasions ;  of  inability  to 
cross  rivers,  and  entanglements  in  the  bush ;  of  messengers  not 
knowing  their  way  ;  deluges  of  rain  being  encountered ;  and  of 
ammunition  falling  short,  far  from  home.  Sir  Charles  M'Carthy, 
after  receiving  a  warning  that  his  skin  —  or  his  skull,  for  both 
are  reported  —  should  adorn  the  great  war-drum  of  Ashantee, 
actually  divided  his  troops  into  four  portions,  and  permitted  the 
small  force  which  he  had  conducted  into  the  interior  to  be  sur- 
rounded by  ten  thousand  Ashantees.  He  was  wounded  in  the 
breast  by  a  musket-shot,  and  three  of  his  officers  laid  him  under 
a  tree,  where  the  enemy  rushed,  knife  in  hand,  on  the  little  party. 
By  the  intervention  of  a  chief,  one  of  the  Englishmen,  named 
Williams,  was  saved,  after  being  wounded  in  the  neck  ;  and  on 
turning  round,  the  first  thing  he  saw  was  the  headless  bodies  of 
his  three  companions.  All  the  English  officers  who  accompanied 
Sir  C.  M'Carthy  were  killed  or  captured,  except  two.  This  hap- 
pened on  the  21st  of  January,  1824.  It  was  not  till  May  that 
the  British  found  themselves  strong  enough  to  brave  the  enemy 
in  the  field.  The  forts  being  garrisoned  by  seamen  and  marines, 
just  arrived  with  the  new  governor,  Colonel  Sutherland,  and  the 
garrisons  turned  out  to  take  the  field,  Colonel  Chisholm  attacked 
the  Ashantees  on  the  21st,  and  drove  them  before  him,  after  five 
1  Penny  Cyclopedia,  art.  Ashantee ,  2  Annual  Register,  1824,  ch.  ix. 


CUAP.  V.]  ASHANTEE  WAE.  35* 

hours'  hard  fighting.  The  ad  vantage 'could  not  be  followed  up, 
for  want  of  resources,  and  because  the  native  allies  deserted. 
Much  fighting  occurred  between  this  time  and  the  1 1th  of  July, 
when  the  Ashantees  were  again  defeated  in  the  field,  near  Cape 
Coast  Castle.  They  hovered  about  till  the  20th,  after  which 
they  were  not  seen  again.  Mutiny  and  desertion  in  his  own 
army  disabled  the  Ashantee  kiny;  from  harassing  the  British,  as 
he  might  si  ill  have  done  by  his  very  numerous  forces.  He 
retired,  leaving  behind  him  bare  and  bloody  h'elds,  where  he  had 
advanced  among  rich  crops  of  maize,  bananas,  yams,  and  plan- 
tains. At  this  time,  beef  was  sixteen  guineas  a  tierce  at  Cape 
Coast;  and  it  was  scarcely  possible  to  obtain  flour  or  bread  at 
any  price.  The  poor  natives  had,  of  course,  no  prospect  but  of 
dying  by  hunger. 

The  Ashantee  king  did  not  give  up  his  object  of  possessing 
himself  of  all  the  country  which  lay  between"  his  northern  boun- 
dary and  the  sea.  During  the  two  succeeding  years,  he  made 
vast  preparations  in  great  quietness.1  The  natives  in  alliance 
with  England  were  much  alarmed,  and  applied  for  assistance  to 
Colonel  Purdon,  commanding  at  Cape  Coast.  They  solemnly 
promised  not  to  run  away  again,  if  they  were  assisted  and  led  by 
the  British  ;  and  this  time  one  king  and  his  forces  were  firm, 
and  fought  well.  The  final  engagement  took  place  on  the  7th 
of  August,  1826,  when  the  Ashantees  lost,  it  was  believed,  not 
less  than  five  thousand  men.  On  the  British  side,  the  loss  was 
eight  hundred  ;  and  two  thousand  were  wounded.  The  Ashantee 
king  lost  the  golden  umbrella  of  state,  the  golden  stool  of  state, 
and  much  wealth  of  gold-dust,  ivory,  &c.  The  great  talisman 
of  the  Ashantees  was  taken  also,  and  examined.  Under  the 
external  covering  of  leopard-skin  appeared  a  silk  handkerchief; 
and  within  the  handkerchief  were  two  folds  of  paper,  covered 
with  Arabic  characters ;  and  within  the  paper  was  the  head  of 
Sir  C.  M'Carthy.  One  of  the  native  kings  was  the  captor  of  the 
talisman  ;  and  he  refused  to  give  it  up.  —  Humbling  as  it  is  to 
be  worsted  in  these  barbaric  wars,  and,  indeed,  to  be  engaged  in 
them  at  all,  their  occurrence  and  incidents  cannot  be  passed  over 
in  the  history  of  the  time.  They  are  not  only  facts  of  the  time  ; 
but  they  yield  their  lesson.  Such  wars  occur  in  most  cases,  as 
in  the  present,  from  the  lack  of  steadiness,  ability,  or  knowledge, 
in  the  agents  sent  from  home  ;  and  we  shall  be  liable  to  such  wars 
and  such  humiliations  as  long  as  due  care  is  not  taken  to  send  fit 
and  properly  prepared  agents  to  our  meanest  settlements  in  the 
most  remote  nooks  of  the  world,  as  anxiously  as  to  the  most  brill- 
iant court  in  Europe.  The  bad  faith  of  Governor  Smith  in  1819 
led  to  the  slaughter  of  Sir  C.  M'Carthy  in  1824;  and  the  iuca- 
1  Annual  Register,  1826,  p.  223. 


352  HISTORY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [BOOK  IL 

pacity  of  Sir  C.  M'Carthy  in  1824  caused  the  protraction  of  the 
war  for  two  year.-,  the  difficulty  of  putting  down  the  Ashantees  at 
the  end  of  that  time,  and  all  the  horrors  of  famine  which  afflicted 
the  territory  during  the  intermediate  period. 
•  For  nearly  four  years  prior  to  1826,  there  had  been  war 
Burmese  between  the  British  in  India  and  the  King  of  Ava, 
war  who  ruled  over  the  Burmese  empire.  The  Burmese 

territory  is  above  a  thousand  miles  long,  by  six  hundred  broad  ; 
and  it  lies  between  Bengal  and  China,  filling  up  the  whole  space. 
The  King  was  as  proud  and  as  vain  as  barbaric  sovereigns  usually 
are  when  they  know  little  or  nothing  beyond  the  bounds  of  their 
own  territory  ;  and  he  ventured  to  annoy  his  western  neighbor, 
unaware  of  the  chastisement  that  he  must  submit  to  in  conse- 
quence. The  Burmese  pushed  across  the  frontier,  and  committed 
thefts  and  violence,1  from  time  to  time,  for  some  years  before  the 
war ;  but  these  aggressions  need  not  be  supposed  to  be  counte- 
nanced by  the  government,  and  they  were  not  therefore  made  a 
subject  of  formal  complaint.  In  1823,  however,  .the  government 
picked  a  quarrel,  slew  some  soldiers  in  the  British  service, 
imprisoned  some  British  subjects  ;  and,  on  being  called  to  account, 
talked  of  invading  Bengal.  The  Burmese  actually  entered  the 
British  territory,  and  set  up  forts,  secured  with  strong  palisades, 
from  one  of  which  a  British  officer  and  his  force  were  driven 
back,  with  considerable  loss,  in  the  month  of  February.  After 
this,  war  followed  of  course ;  and,  of  course,  it  was  a  disastrous 
war  enough  to  the  ignorant  sovereign  who  had  provoked  it. 

The  principal  seaport  of  the  Burmese,  Ringoon,  was  at- 
tacked on  the  llth  of  May.  and  immediately  submitted.  The 
members  of  the  government  fled  at  the  first  shot;  and  the  whole 
population  of  Rangoon,  except  one  hundred  persons,  ran  away 
into  the  jungle  before  the  British  could  take  possession  of  the 
town.  After  this,  however,  the  conduct  of  the  war  became 
much  more  difficult,  from  the  security  affor  led  to  the  enemy  by 
the  jungle,  and  by  the  stockades  which  the  Burmese  threw  up 
before  every  advantageous  spot  where  tliey  rested.  It  was  a 
weary  and  dreary  war ;  as  war  with  a  barbaric  people  must  ever 
be.  It  was  no  comfort  that  the  Burmese  lost,  many  times  over, 
more  men  than  the  British  ;  th  it  they  were  always  leaving  their 
ammunition  behind  them,  and  laying  waste  their  fields,  that  their 
enemy  might  not  be  supported  by  their  soil.  There  was  no 
comfort  in  all  this ;  for  it  did  not  appear  to  hasten  the  arrival  of 
peace.  The  climate  and  the  country  —  the  heavy  rains,  burning 
suns,  jungles,  and  swamps  —  were  unfavorable  to  the  invaders; 
and  at  the  end  of  1 824,  though  they  had  advanced  deep  into  the 
country,  they  did  not  seem  much  nearer  to  peace.  The  year 
1  Annual  Register,  1824,  p.  114. 


CHAP.  V.I  BURMESE  WAR.  358 

1825,  too,1  wa>  filled  up  with  successes  which  went  for  nothing  — 
though  the  British  commander,  Sir  Archibald  Campbell,  did  his 
duty  well.  One  eighth  of  the  British  troops  were  sick  amidst 
the  swamps  and  rains  ;  and  they  were  fired  upon  from  the  jungle, 
where  they  could  not  follow  their  assailants.  In  the  autumn 
there  was  an  armistice,  with  abundance  of  fine  speeches  and 
compliments,  ceremonious  dinings,  and  pretences  of  ardent  friend- 
ship ;  but  probably  every  one  knew  that  the  whole  was  a  device 
for  obtaining  time,  —  to  recover  the  sick  of  the  one  party,  and 
replenish  the  means  of  defence  of  the  other.  Then  followed  the 
defeat  of  the  great  Burmese  army  by  little  more  than  a  tenth 
part  of  their  number ; 2  and  then  a  treaty  of  peace,  which,  after 
being  duly  signed,  was  found  actually  never  to  have  been  for- 
warded to  the  King.  The  alleged  difficulty  about  this  treaty,  on 
the  part  of  the  Burmese,  was  that  they  could  not  pay  the  money 
demanded  for  the  expenses  of  the  war.  They  begged  Sir  A. 
Campbell  to  take  rice  instead,  or  to  cut  down  and  carry  away  the 
fine  trees  he  might  take  a  fancy  to  ;  but  he  insisted  on  the  money, 
and  the  treaty  was  signed.  When,  after  the  next  victory,  the  Brit- 
ish took  possession  of  Melloone,  they  found  there  the  treaty,  which 
had  never  been  forwarded  to  Ava.8  And  they  found  also,  in  the 
Prince  Memiaboo's  house,  the  sum  of  30,000  rupees  (3000/.). 
The  treaty  was  forwarded  to  the  commissioner,  with  a  note  say- 
ing that  he  had  probably  left  it  behind  him  in  the  hurry  of  his 
departure.  The  commissioner  replied  that  in  the  same  hurry  he 
had  left  behind  him  a  large  sum  of  money,  which  he  was  confi- 
dent the  British  general  was  only  waiting  a  favorable  opportu- 
nity to  restore  to  him. 

There  is  something  extremely  painful  in  such  stories  as  these ; 
in  contemplating  wars  whose  horrors  are  as  great  as  those  which 
are  conducted  by  foes  under  an  equality  of  civilization,  but  which 
are  yet  made  ludicrous  by  the  childishness  of  one  of  the  parties. 
Such  wars  do  not  appear,  as  far  as  our  eastern  possessions  are 
concerned,  to  have  been  the  fault  of  the  more  civilized  party, 
any  time  within  our  century.  There  is  no  wish  for  war  in  a 
case  like  this,  where  the  cost  of  money  can  hardly  be  repaid  by 
any  fruits  of  conquest ;  where  the  troops  are  cut  off  by  climate 
and  disease  ;  where  the  survivors  gain  little  glory  by  much  hard- 
ship ;  and  where  the  sufferings  of  the  conquered  country  are 
sucli  as  must  give  concern  to  the  hardest  heart.  In  the  present 
instance,  all  means  of  conciliation  and  negotiation  seem  to  have 
been  tried  before  war  was  resorted  to.  The  necessity  was  one 
to  which  future  generations  are  subjected  by  those  who  first 
establish  a  footing  by  force  in  a  barbaric  quarter  of  the  globe. 
Such  men  little  know  what  they  do  —  to  what  an  interminable 
l  Annual  Register,  1825,  ch.  viii.  2  jbid.  1826,  p.  211.  8  Ibid.  p.  215. 
VOL.  ii.  23 


354  HISTORY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [BOOK  IL 

series  of  future  wars  they  pledge  their  country;  what  an  embar- 
rassment of  territory,  and  burden  of  responsibility,  and  crowds 
of  quarrelsome  and  irrational  neighbors,  they  bring  upon  her ; 
and  how  they  implicate  her  in  the  obligation  to  superintend  the 
fortunes  of  half  a  continent,  or  perhaps  half  the  globe,  till  civili- 
zation shall  have  so  spread  and  penetrated  as  that  the  nations 
can  take  care  of  themselves,  and  cooperate  with  each  other.  It 
is  thus  with  the  British  in  Asia  now.  After  the  close  of  this 
Burmese  war,  a  wise  and  benevolent  statesman  was  wont  to  say 
in  London,  with  a  grave  countenance,  that  we  should  be  com- 
pelled to  conquer  China  ;  and  those  who  did  not  see  as  far  as  he 
did  into  our  responsibilities  on  the  field  of  Asia,  and  who  knew 
how  far  he  was  from  desiring  conquest  as  a  good,  used  to  jest 
about  him  as  "  the  conqueror  of  China."  Before  the  day  of  the 
Chinese  war  arrived,  the  far-seeing  statesman  was  in  his  grave  ; 
but  his  words  remained  in  the  ears  of  his  friends,  as  a  direction 
into  the  yet  remoter  future  where  our  national  responsibilities 
will  still  be  acting  when  we  are  in  our  graves.  Ours  is,  probably, 
not  the  only  generation  which  will  pass  away  before  England's 
wars  with  barbaric  States  are  ended. 

Peace  was  concluded  with  the  King  of  Ava,  in  February,1  on 
terms  which  were  triumphant  to  the  British.  Their  expenses 
were  paid  by  the  Burmese,  and  there  was  such  a  cession  of  bor- 
der territory  as  would  secure  Bengal  from  incursions  from  the 
east.  There  was  difficulty  and  delay  about  the  restoration  of 
the  prisoners  and  the  payment  of  the  tribute  ;  but  every  condi- 
tion was  enforced  by  Sir  A.  Campbell,  and,  on  the  oth  of  March, 
the  British  troops  turned  their  faces  towards  Rangoon,  on  their 
way  back  to  Bengal. 

While  these  eastern  conflicts  were  taking  place,  Mr.  Canning 
was  earnestly  occupied  at  home  in  preventing  a  war 
in  the  western  world.  Till  our  globe  is  better  known, 
and  newly  discovered  portions  more  accurately  surveyed  and 
defined  than  has  been  possible  in  the  early  days  of  geographical 
science,  there  will  be  danger  of  disputes  about  possession  and 
boundaries  between  countries  which  have  contributed  to  the 
disc-overy  of  new  regions,  and  which  may  have  been  concerned 
in  cessions  of  territory  obscurely  described.  This  has  been  the 
case  with  regard  to  the  territory  pertaining  to  one  of  the  most 
imi>ortant  rivers  in  the  New  World  —  the  Columbia ;  the  pos- 
session of  which  has  been  repeatedly  and  vehemently  disputed 
by  the  English  government  and  tbat  of  the  United  Suites. 
When  Mr.  Canning  came  into  office  in  1822,  the  condition  of  the 
question  was  such,  that  as  Lord  Castlereagh  told  Mr.  Rush,  the 
American  minister  in  London,  war  could  be  produced  by  hold- 
ing up  a  finger. 

i  Annual  Register,  1826,  p.  217. 


CHAP.  V.]  OREGON.  355 

The  matter  was  really  a  very  important  one.  The  Columbia 
is  the  largest  river  which  flows  into  the  Pacific ;  its  course  from 
the  Rocky  Mountains  being  nearly  nine  hundred  miles.  Its 
entrance  is  somewhat  difficult ;  but  just  within  is  a  spacious  and 
secure  bay.  The  harbors  along  the  west  coast  of  North  Amer- 
ica are  very  few  ;  not  more  than  two  or  three  outside  the  dis- 
puted territory  ;  and  far-seeing  men  are  aware  that  every  secure 
anchorage  will  be  of  inestimable  value  when  the  trade  of  the 
Pacific  becomes  what  it  is  certainly  destined  to  be.  Again,  the 
Columbia  is  now  the  only  large  river  amidst  the  habitable 
regions  of  the  globe  which  remains  to  be  colonized ;  and  of  all 
possible  considerations,  none  is  so  important  to  Great  Britain  as 
her  field  of  colonization.  Embayed  in  the  coast  of  the  disputed 
territory  is  an  island  —  Vancouver's  Island  —  two  hundred  and 
fifty  miles  long  by  fifty  broad,  which  is  fertile,  lias  a  climate  like 
that  of  England,  and  abounds  in  coal  of  an  excellent  quality. 
In  Mr.  Canning's  time  the  importance  of  this  island  was  not  so 
clear  as  it  is  now  that  we  have  obtained  settlements  in  China, 
and  extended  our  steam-navigation  into  the  Pacific.  The  pros- 
pect was  not  then  so  distinct  as  now,  of  the  activity  of  commerce 
which  must  arise  in  those  regions,  where  our  agents  are  already 
looking  for  coal  and  good  harbors.  At  that  time  the  Oregon 
was  a  remote  region  beyond  the  Rocky  Mountains,  which  it 
seemed  scarcely  possible  for  emigrants  to  reach,  and  whence 
there  could  hardly  be  any  communication  between  them  and  the 
mother-country.  Now  that  it  is  accessible  from  the  other  side, 
being  only  eighteen  days'  sail  from  our  Chinese  settlements, 
while  commerce  and  navigation  are  quickening  along  the  whole 
American  coast,  the  aspect  of  the  question  is  much  altered.  But 
even  then,  the  Oregon  territory  was  seen  to  be  no  trifle,  to  be 
lightly  given  up  by  an  insular  nation,  whose  future  welfare  must 
depend  incalculably  on  its  means  of  colonization  ;  and  the  ques- 
tion of  the  right  to  Oregon  was  disputed  with  a  proportionate 
warmth  and  pertinacity. 

The  claim  of  the  United  States  was  for  a  boundary  which 
should  give  them  not  only  the  Columbia  River,  but  Vancouver's 
Island ;  bringing  their  coast  so  nearly  to  a  junction  with  the 
Russian  territory  as  that  British  vessels  could  pass  in  and  out 
only  among  islands  belonging  to  the  one  or  the  other  power.  In 
1818,  the  British  commissioners,  Mr.  Robinson  and  Mr.  Goul- 
burn,  would  not  concede  this  ;  and  the  American  government 
would  not  modify  the  claim ;  and  the  parties,  therefore,  made  an 
arrangement  which  could  not  but  increase  the  difficulty  of  a 
future  settlement.  They  agreed  to  leave  the  territory  open  to 
occupation  by  Americans  and  British  for  ten  years  ;  after  which 
the  subject  should  be  resumed.  As  time  drew  on  to  the  close  of 


356  mSTORT  OF  THE  PEACE.  [Boox  H, 

the  term,  Mr.  Rush,  the  American  minister,  was  directed  to  open 
the  subject  again  with  Mr.  Canning ;  the  United  States  govern- 
ment having,  meantime,  sent  a  frigate  to  the  mouth  of  the 
Columbia,  to  explore  the  river,  and  establish  a  post  at  its  mouth, 
on  what  Congress  declared  to  be  "  within  the  acknowledged 
limits "  of  the  American  territory.1  Mr.  Rush  waited  on  Mr. 
Canning,  ,who  was  in  bed  with  an  attack  of  gout.  Mr.  Rush 
was  admitted ;  they  spread  out  maps  upon  the  bed ;  and  Mr. 
Canning  was  astonished  to  discover  how  great  was  the  extent  of 
the  American  claim.2  The  next  time  they  conferred,  the  Amer- 
ican minister  yielded  two  degrees  of  latitude,  which  would  have 
left  Vancouver's  Island  to  Britain,  but  not  the  Columbia  River. 
This  offer  was  rejected  by  Mr.  Canning,  whose  proposal  of  a 
modi6ed  settlement  was  in  turn  rejected  by  Mr.  Rush.  The 
more  the  affair  was  discussed,  the  more  -  hopeless  did  any  con- 
clusion appear ;  and  so  angry  did  the  people  of  both  countries 
become,  that  the  slightest  irritability  on  the  part  of  the  negotia- 
tors would  have  instantly  kindled  a  war.  Mr.  Canning's  part 
was  patience,  and  the  recommendation  of  patience.  He  lost  no 
opportunity  of  testifying  his  good-will  towards  the  government 
and  people  of  the  United  States,  and  of  restraining  the  jealousy 
between  the  two  nations.  The  question  was  not  settled  in  his 
time ;  but  he  did  much  in  preventing  a  war,  and  in  keeping 
open  a  way  for  an  ultimate  amicable  settlement  of  a  question 
whose  importance  to  his  country  was  greater  than  even  he  could 
be  aware  of. 

Whenever  the  periods  arrived  —  once  in  two  years  —  for  the 

renewed  of  the  Alien  Act,  the  question  was  asked  in 

Parliament  by  the  opponents  of  the  bill,  whether  it 

was  proposed  for  the  benefit  of  our  own  country  or  for  that  of 

foreign  sovereigns.      The  subject  is  sufficiently  connected  with 

our  foreign  policy  to  find  its  place  here ;  and  especially  because 

it    was    the  prevalence   of  discontent  and    insurrection    abroad, 

during  this  period,  which  made  the  seasons  of  the  renewal  of 

the  Alien  Act  interesting  and  important  occasions  of  discussion. 

Every  one  who  has  travelled  on  the  Continent  is  ready  to  join 
in  complaint  and  condemnation  of  the  passport  system  there,  by 
which  every  traveller  is  compelled  to  carry  about  with  him  a 
description  of  himself —  his  personal  appearance,  age,  station, 
and  occupation  —  and  to  have  the  statement  certified  afresh  for 
every  new  country  he  enters.  The  trouble  and  expense,  the 
vexation  and  delay,  the  mistakes  and  inconveniences  suffered  by 
travellers  under  this  system,  are  such  as  to  make  it  hateful  tc 
everybody.  No  such  system  existing  in  England,  it  is  clear 
that,  during  troubled  times,  every  man  who  had  reason  to  uish 
I  President's  Message,  1834.  3  Wfe  of  Gunning,  p.  337, 


CHAP.  V.]  THE  ALIEN  ACT.  357 

to  escape  notice,  in  any  continental  country,  would  rush  to  Eng- 
land, if  he  could,  and  there  feel  himself  in  safe  hiding,  if  no 
method  of  registration  of  foreigners  were  adopted.  Among 
these,  the  grnit  majority  might  be  such  as,  from  their  worth  or 
their  misfortunes,  England  would  be  proud  and  eager  to  receive 
and  console  ;  and  such  could  have  no  reasonable  objection  to 
register  their  names  and  description  on  their  arrival.  Others, 
however,  whether  many  or  few,  might  be  criminals  or  mischief- 
makers,  of  whose  presence  in  the  country  it  is  absolutely  necessary 
to  the  public  security  and  good  faith  that  the  government  should 
be  a  \vare.  This  much  appears  to  have  been  undispuled,  while  the 
successive  Alien  Acts  of  1820,  1822,  and  1824  were  under  dis- 
cussion in  Parliament.  The  provisions  by  which  foreigners 
arriving  in  England  were  required  to  declare  who  and  what 
they  were,  and  to  sign  their  names  in  the  presence  of  an  author- 
ity always  on  the  spot,  were  not  objected  to  by  those  who  stren- 
uously opposed  other  parts  of  the  bills.  By  this  registration  it 
appears  that,  in  1820,  the  number  of  foreigners  in  England  was 
no  less  than  25,000,  very  few  of  whom  were  engaged  in  commer- 
cial or  other  settled  pursuits,  —  a  fact  which  seems  to  indicate 
the  recent  arrival  of  a  large  proportion  of  them.  There  was  a 
constant  increase  of  arrivals  over  departures,  from  an  average 
of  266  to  1300  in  a  year,  from  1819  to  1822,  both  inclusive. 
This  extraordinary  influx  was,  of  course,  owing  to  the  revolutions 
and  revolts  on  the  Continent ;  and  the  class  of  immigrants  was 
exactly  that  which  a  Castlereagh  and  Sidmouth  would  watch 
with  jealousy  and  dislike,  and  which  would  appeal  strongly  to 
the  sympathies  of  the  liberal  leaders  in  Parliament,  and  of  the 
hospitable  English  people  throughout  the  land.  The  objections 
made  to  the  successive  Alien  Acts,  and  urged  with  force  and 
ardor  by  some  of  the  best  men  in  Parliament,  regarded  the 
power  accorded  to  government  of  sending  away  obnoxious  stran- 
gers, and  its  possible  retrospective  operation.  The  acts  secured 
to  the  suspected  alien  a  power  of  appeal  to  the  privy  council ; 
and  he  was  to  be  dismissed  openly,  by  proclamation,  or  by  an 
order  in  council.  The  opponents  of  the  bills  required  some 
security  that  the  obnoxious  foreigner  should  not  be  delivered  up 
to  his  special  enemies  abroad,  nor  subjected  on  the  spot  to 
threats  from  subordinate  officers  ;  and  they  demanded  that  all 
foreigners  resident  in  Great  Britain  before  1814  should  be 
exempted  from  the  operation  of  the  acts.  Their  speeches  were 
directed  against  the  power  of  dismissal  at  all ;  though  the  neces- 
sity of  some  such  power  was  not  expressly  denied.  The  replies 
showed  that  the  government  was  under  some  effectiuil  responsi- 
bility, and*  that  the  existence  of  the  power  of  deportation  was 
the  surest  way  of  rendering  the  exercise  of  that  power  unneces- 


358  HISTORY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [BOOK  II. 

sary.  The  actual  case  seems  to  be  that  the  power  was  unaccept- 
able to  the  holders,  even  more  than  to  the  givers,  who  could  not 
control  its  operation  ;  that  it  was  used  as  sparingly,  and  surren- 
dered as  early  as  possible ;  and  that  it  is  most  improbable  that  it 
should  ever  be  conferred  again.  The  bills  passed  by  decided 
majorities  on  each  occasion ;  and  on  each  occasion  the  minister 
had  to  report  that  there  had  been  no  abuse  of  the  powers  of  the 
act,  and  that  the  number  of  aliens  sent  away  was  so  small  as  to 
appear  to  testify  to  the  efficacy  of  the  legislation.  In  ten  years, 
as  Mr.  Peel  declared  in  1824,  only  five  or  six  persons  had  been 
sent  out  of  the  country,  except  a  little  band  of  agitators  con- 
nected with  Napoleon ;  and  with  regard  to  these  cases,  there  was 
no  dangerous  or  tyrannical  concealment.  In  short,  the  acts, 
though  in  a  certain  measure  questionable,  worked  well  in  an 
extraordinary  time;  and  in  1824,  Mr.  Peel  proposed  a  consider- 
able amelioration  in  the  provisions  of  the  renewed  act.  At  this 
time  the  number  of  aliens  in  the  country  was  26,500  ;  and  some 
had  been  detected  in  devising  plots  for  revolt  in  their  respective 
countries,  amidst  the  facilities  afforded  by  a  residence  in  London. 
The  government  had,  however,  sent  away  only  one  person 
(Count  Bettera)  within  two  years,  preferring  to  stop  the  plots 
of  agitators  by  warning  and  remonstrance ;  and  they  now  felt 
able  to  recommend  that  the  Alien  Act  should  henceforth  apply 
to  no  persons  who  had  resided  in  England  for  seven  years.  On 
the  next  occasion,  in  1826,  a  much  greater  relaxation  was  made: 
the  power  of  deportation  was  withdrawn  from  among  the  pro- 
visions, a  fuller  process  of  registration  being  substituted  for  it. 

Great  satisfaction  was  occasioned  by  this  change.  No  one 
objected  to  the  reasonableness  of  the  demand  that  government 
should  know  where  the  foreigners  who  sought  an  abode  in  the 
country  would  be  found ;  all  agreed  that  the  power  of  deportation 
had  been  carefully  used,  and  guarded  from  abuse;  and  all  were 
heartily  glad  when  it  could  be  given  up,  never,  it  was  hoped,  to 
be  asked  for  again. 

During  this  course  of  years,  these  thousands  of  foreigners 
largely  influenced  the  mind  of  the  English  nation.  It  was  a 
good  thing  to  have  among  us  men  of  great  and  various  knowledge, 
art,  and  accomplishment.  It  was  a  good  thing  to  have  our  minds, 
too  long  and  too  closely  shut  up  in  our  own  island  and  our  own 
affairs,  opened  to  take  in  new  ideas,  and  awakened  to  a  fresh  cu- 
riosity. It  was  a  good  thing  to  have  our  sympathies  appealed 
to,  and  our  hospitable  impulses  strengthened,  by  the  claims  of  so 
many  perplexed  and  distressed  strangers,  who  looked  to  us  as 
their  only  refuge  from  despair.  It  was  a  better  thing  still  to 
have  the  subject  of  government  and  constitutional  liberties  dis- 
cussed at  so  many  English  firesides ;  so  many  careless  minds  fixed 


CHAP.  V.]  INFLUENCE  OF  FOREIGNERS.  359 

—  so  many  timid  inspired  —  so  many  ardent  informed  ;  and  all, 
perhaps,  made  more  aware  than  they  could  have  been  by  any 
other  means  of  the  privileges  of  their  own  political  position,  and 
their  duty  in  the  preservation  and  improvement  of  it.  If,  in  the 
next  generation,  England  makes  progress  in  constitutional  free- 
dom and  social  amelioration,  it  may  be  surmised  that  among  the 
reformers  and  guardians  of  the  national  welfare  are  some  whose 
eyes  flashed,  and  whose  hearts  beat,  when  they  sat  on  parents' 
knees,  listening  to  the  foreign  speech,  and  sympathizing  in  the 
fortunes  of  the  exiled  noble,  and  the  indomitable  patriot,  of  whom 
his  own  country  was  not  worthy.  Among  the  blessings  of  the 
peace  may  be  reckoned  such  fraternization  as  this. 


860  HISTORY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [BOOK 


CHAPTER  VI. 

IN  looking  back  to  the  time  of  Mr.  Canning's  entrance  upon 
Changes  in  office,  in  the  autumn  of  1822,  it  is  clear  —  made  clear 
the  Ministry,  by  the  \\ght  of  subsequent  events  —  that  a  new  pe- 
riod in  the  domestic  history  of  the  country  was  opening.  Many 
persons  must  have  been  aware  of  this  at  the  time,  if  we  may 
judge  by  the  satisfaction  expressed  in  various  ways  at  the  ap- 
pointment of  Mr.  Robinson  as  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer,  in 
the  place  of  Mr.  Vansittart,  who  left  office  with  the  title  of  Lord 
Bexley ;  and  at  Mr.  Huskisson's  becoming  president  of  the  Board 
of  Trade,  in  January,  1823.  Enough  of  the  old  elements  was 
left  to  keep  the  timid  and  unobservant  quiet,  in  the  hope  that 
things  would  go  on  pretty  much  as  before,  while  Lord  Liverpool 
was  the  head  of  the  administration,  and  Lord  Eldon  was  a  fix- 
ture ;  and  the  Duke  of  Wellington  represented  England  abroad, 
and  the  King  was  surrounded  by  so  many  of  his  favorite  class  of 
statesmen  ;  and  the  Duke  of  York  took  a  solemn  oath  occasion- 
ally against  countenancing  any  attempt  to  relax  the  disabilities 
of  the  Catholics.  It  was  a  misfortune,  to  be  sure,  that  the  gov- 
ernment of  the  country  could  not  go  on  without  Canning ;  with 
out  a  man  who  was  irretrievably  pledged  to  the  cause  of  Catholic 
emancipation  ;  and  that  Mr.  Huskisson  was  admitted  into  the 
cabinet,  with  his  troublesome  and  dangerous  notions  about  im- 
pairing the  protection  to  native  industry  ;  but  it  was  hoped  that 
native  industry  was  safe  in  the  fostering  bosom  of  the  English 
nation ;  and  some  expressions  of  Mr.  Canning's  were  laid  hold 
of — expressions  about  the  apparent  impossibility  of  carrying 
Catholic  emancipation  under  any  government  that  could  be  de- 
vised —  as  affording  an  assurance  that,  though  the  new  minister 
was  obliged  to  talk  about  the  matter,  he  would  never  be  able  to 
do  anything  in  it ;  and  thus  the  tedium  and  loss  of  time  in  talk- 
ing would  be  the  extent  of  the  evil.  Besides,  the  two  obnoxious 
men  were  "  political  adventurers,"  low-born,  and  therefore  vul- 
gar ;  and  their  influence  would  be  kept  down  accordingly  by  their 
more  aristocratic  political  connections.  Such  appears  to  have 
been  the  view  of  the  ministerial  party,  at  this  time,  throughout 
the  country,  from  the  King  himself  to  the  little  country  shop- 


CHAP.  VI.]  NEW  PERIOD   OPENING.  361 

keeper  of  Tory  politics.  The  light  of  subsequent  events  show., 
us,  however,  that  the  case  did  not  stand  exactly  thus.  The  King 
was  growing  morbid  in  temper  and  spirits  —  more  addicted  to  a 
selfish  and  inglorious  seclusion,  and  less  interested  about  public 
affairs  from  year  to  year.  The  Duke  of  York  was  to  die  before 
him,  and  now  in  no  long  time.  The  Lord  Chancellor  was  to  find 
himself  less  influential,  henceforlh,  in  the  cabinet  and  in  the 
House  ot  Lords.  The  Duke  of 'Wellington  was  to  prove  himself 
as  pliable  before  political  necessity,  as  inflexible  in  military  duty. 
Mr.  Peel  was  to  prove  himself  capable  of  education  in  the  poli- 
tics and  philosophy  of  a  new  period.  And  Lord  Liverpool  him- 
self was  already  so  uneasy  about  the  position  of  the  Catholics 
that  he  did  not,  and  could  not,  conceal  from  his  intimate  friends 
his  conviction  that  their  emancipation  was  only  a  question  of 
time.  He  was  now  within  five  years  of  the  date  when,  as  is  well 
known,  he  was  making  up  his  mind  to  resign  his  post  to  another 
who  would  carry  the  emancipation  of  the  Catholics ;  which  pur- 
pose was  intercepted  by  the  fatal  seizure  which  withdrew  him 
from  public  life. 

As  for  the  two  "  political  adventurers  "  whom  it  was  so  disa- 
greeable to  be  obliged  to  admit  into  the  cabinet,  their  present 
position  was  enough  to  mark,  to  the  observant  thinker,  the  change 
in  ihe  times.  A  new  period  must  be  opening  when  men  of  a  new 
order  are  so  indispensable  at  the  council-board  of  the  empire  as 
that  they  are  found  seated  there  without  effort  of  their  own,  and 
against  the  will  of  their  colleagues.  A  new  period  was  opening. 
Let  us  look  at  some  of  its  features. 

A  time  of  war  is  a  season  of  abeyance  of  social  principles. 
Amidst  the  disturbance  of  war,  the  great  natural  laws  of  society 
are  obscured  and  temporarily  lost.  An  exceptional  state  is  in- 
troduced, during  which  the  principles  of  social  rule  retire  and  hide 
themselves  behind  the  passions  and  exigencies  of  the  time.  Dur- 
ing such  a  season,  the  statesmen  required  are  such  as  can  employ, 
as  substitutes  for  large  principles  of  social  rule,  a  strong  and  dis- 
interested will,  commanding  a  clear  understanding  and  a  ready 
apprehension.  In  such  a  season,  the  man  is  everything.  He 
truly  rules,  if  he  has  the  requisite  power  of  will,  whether  his 
aims  and  his  methods  be  better  or  worse.  Statesmanship  is-a 
post  which  in  war,  as  in  a  despotism,  may  well  make  giddy  all 
but  the  strongest  heads  —  may  relax  any  nerves  but  those  turned 
to  steel  by  the  tire  of  an  unquenchable  will.  A  statesman  in 
such  times  is  required  above  all  things  to  be  consistent.  Con- 
sistency—  which  then  means  an  adherence  to  an  avowed  plan 
or  system  —  is  the  one  indispen-able  virtue  of  a  statesman  who 
rules  during  an  obscuration  of  great  social  laws.  There  is  no  rea- 
son for  vacillation  or  change  when  he  acts  from  internal  forces^ 


362  HISTORY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [Boos  H. 

and  not  under  the  direction  of  external  laws  conflicting  with  fac- 
ulty put  to  a  new  school.  While  statesmanship  was  of  this  char- 
acter —  as  long  as  the  British  nation  lived  under  rule  which  had 
more  or  less  of  despotism  in  it,  and  while  it  was  engaged  in  war, 

—  that  is,  during  almost  the  whole  of  its  existence,  —  Britisli 
statesmen  were  naturally,  almost  necessarily,  of  the  aristocratic 
class.     Leaving   behind,  out  of  notice,  the  administrators  who 
were  mere  creatures  of  royal  favor,  and  not  worthy  to  be  called 
statesmen,  and  coming  down  to  later  time?,  when  political  func- 
tion had  become  a  personal  honor  independently  of  royal  grace, 
it  was  inevitable  that  English  statesmen  should  be  derived  from 
a  class  to  whom  personal  honors  were  most  an  object,  and  whose 
circum-tances  of  birth  and  fortune  set  them  at  liberty  for  political 
action  and  occupation.     Many  influences  favored  this  choice  of 
statesmen  from  the  aristocratic  orders  :  class  habits  of  intercourse 

—  class  views  and  class  interests.     A  lawyer's  birth  is  forgotten 
in  his  eminence  ;  so  that  low-born  lawyers  might  rise,  by  the  bar, 
to  high  political  office ;  but  otherwise  a  man  must  be,  if  not  in 
some  way  noble,  highly  aristocratic  before  he  could  be  a  states- 
man,   under   penalty  of  being  '  called  a   "  political  adventurer." 
After  the  peace,  a  different  set  of  conditions  gradually  developed 
themselves.      When  war   is  over,  —  the    critical  period    which 
admits  the  rule  of  the  statesman's  will,  —  an  organic  state  suc- 
ceeds, wherein  all  individual  will  succumbs  to  the  working  of 
general  laws.     The  statesman  can  then  no  longer  be  a  political 
hero,  overruling  influences,  and  commanding  events.     He  only 
can  be  a  statesman  in  the  new  days  who  is  the  servant  of  prin- 
ciples —  the   agent  of  the  great  natural  laws    of  society.     The 
principles  which  had  gone  into  hiding  during  the  period  of  war- 
fare now  show  themselves  again,  and  assume,  amidst  more  or  less 
resistance,  the  government  of  states.     Administrators  who  will 
not  obey  must  retire,  and  make  way  for  a  new  order  of  men. 
Amidst  the  difficulty  and  perplexity  of  such  changes,  a  whole 
nation  may  be  heard  calling  out  for  a  great  political  hero,  and 
complaining  that  all  its  statesmen  have  grown  small  and  feeble  : 
but  it  is  not  that  the  men  have  deteriorated,  but  that  the  polity 
is  growing  visibly  organic  ;  and  a  different  order  of  men  is  required 
to  administer  its  affairs. 

When  these  new  men  come  in,  the  old  requisitions  are  still 
made  —  the  old  tests  applied ;  and  great  is  the  consequent  tur- 
moil and  disappointment  on  all  hands.  *  Everybody  is  troubled, 
except  a  philosopher  here  and  there,  who  sees  further  than  others. 
Consistency  is  talked  of  still,  as  the  first  virtue  requisite  in  a 
statesman ;  and  'perhaps  the  man  himself  considers  it  so,  and 
pledges  himself  fearlessly  to  consistency.  But  he  soon  finds  him- 
self no  master  of  the  principles  of  government,  but  a  mere  agent 


CHAP.  VI.]  THE   CABINET  OF  1823.  363 

of  laws  which  work  themselves  out  whether  he  will  or  no  ;  a  mere 
learner  under  the  tutelage  of  time  and  events.  If  he  is  a  states- 
man from  ambition,  he  must  change  the  ground  of  his  ambition ; 
not  exulting  in  framing  and  carrying  ojt  a  political  theory  or 
system,  but  investing  his  pride  in  the  enterprise  of  carrying  out 
in  the  safest  manner  chjfnges  which  must  be  made  ;  doing  in  the 
best  manner  work  which  must,  in  one  way  or  other,  be  done.  As 
this  new  necessity  opens  before  him  —  this  fresh  view  of  states- 
manship presses  upon  him  —  he  suffers  more  perhaps  than  all 
whom  he  disappoints.  He  is  in  an  agony  for  his  consistency,  till 
he  has  become  fully  convinced  that  the  highest  praise  of  a  states- 
man under  the  new  order  of  things  is  that  he  can  live  and  learn  ; 
and  long  after  he  has  himself  obtained  a  clear  view  of  this  truth, 
he  is  annoyed  by  inquiries  after  his  lost  consistency.  A  little 
time,  however,  justifies  him.  On  looking  round,  he  finds  that 
there  is  no  politician  of  worth  in  any  party,  who  has  not  changed 
his  opinion  on  one  or  more  questions  of  importance  since  enter- 
ing upon  political  life;  and  that  the  only  "  consistent "  men  — 
the  only  men  who  think  and  say  precisely  what  they  thought  and 
said  at  the  beginning  —  are  the  political  bigots  who  cannot  live 
and  learn. 

Under  a  new  period  like  this,  new  men  must  come  up  —  men 
who  discern  the  signs  of  the  times  earlier  and  more  clearly  than 
politicians  who  are  closed  in  by  class  limits  and  governmental 
traditions.  Such  new  men  would  hardly  escape  criticism  from 
their  colleagues,  even  if  belonging  to  the  order  from  which 
statesmen  are  usually  derived.  Their  being  brought  in  as  a  sign 
of  new  times  is  a  ground  of  jealousy  in  itself.  But  the  new  men 
must,  from  the  very  nature  of  the  case,  be  from  a  class  placed  in  a 
different  position  ;  and  they  have  much  to  encounter.  If  wealthy, 
so  as  to  be,  in  regard  to  fortune,  independent  of  office,  they  are 
looked  upon  as  upstarts.  If  without  fortune,  they  are  called  ad- 
venturers. No  matter  how  great  their  genius,  how  conspicuous 
their  honesty,  how  unquestionable  their  disinterestedness,  or  even 
how  aristocratic  their  tendencies  ;  if  they  live  on  the  proceeds  of 
office,  and  make  statesmanship  the  business  of  their  lives,  they 
are  "  adventurers." 

All  the  varieties  referred  to  were  found  in  the  cabinet  of  1823. 
There  were  some  members  of  old  and  high  families.  There 
were  some  of  middle-class  origin  who  had  risen  by  means  of 
university  connection  and  high  Toryism,  at  a  time  when  the  war 
made  a  wider  road  to  statesmanship  than  the  natural  laws  of 
society  permit  in  seasons  of  peace.  Lord  Eldon  was  of  what  his 
colleagues  would  have  called  low  origin,  if  they  had  cared  about 
it ;  but  he  had  risen  by  the  way  of  the  law,  and  was 
exempt  from  criticism  on  that  score.  Mr.  Peel  was 


HISTORY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [BOOK  IL 

the  son  of  a  cotton-spinner ;  but  his  father,  besides  being  enor- 
mously rich,  was  a  vigorous  Tory  ;  and  the  son  was  quiet  and 
modest,  submitting  to  be  commended  patronizingly  by  Lord  Sid- 
mouth,  and  never  forgetting  or  concealing  the  fact  of  his  origin. 
There  can  be  no  doubt  that,  though  Mr.  Peel  has  managed  the 
fact  with  all  prudence  and  honesty,  and  4ias  long  risen  above  the 
need  of  any  adventitious  advantages,  he  has  felt  the  awkward- 
ness of  being  the  son  of  a  cotton-spinner  innumerable  times  in 
the  course  of  his  career.  There  is  something  in  the  way  of  his 
occasionally  referring  to  the  fact  which  shows  this.  It  is  painful 
to  dwell  on  these  features  of  the  lot  of  statesmanship,  —  almost 
shocking  when  we  consider  how  far  the  honors  of  the  position 
transcend  any  honors  of  birth.  But  it  is  necessary  to  historical 
truth  to  mark  clearly  the  features  of  a  new  period  of  society  ; 
and  this  period  seems  to  be  the  one  when  the  hold  of  the  aristo- 
cratic classes  on  the  function  of  statesmanship  was  first  loosened, 
—  the  first  opening  made  into  the  prospect  of  a  future  time  when 
men  of  the  people  will  be  admitted,  and  must  be  welcomed,  to  a 
share  in  the  management  of  the  affairs  of  the  whole  people. 
The  first  who  entered  the  government  under  this  incipient  change 
Mr. Canning  were  sure  to  suffer;  and  to  suffer  on  a  point  on  which 
and  Mr.  '  men  of  their  kind  are  peculiarly  sensitive.  The  men 
who  had  thus  to  suffer  were  Canning  and  Huskisson. 

Canning  was  one  of  whom  it  might  be  said,  according  to  ordi- 
nary notions,  that  he  ought  to  have  been  a  nobleman.  High-spir- 
ited, confident,  gay,  genial,  chivalrous,  and  most  accomplished,  — 
he  had  the  attributes  of  nobility,  as  they  are  commonly  conceived 
of;  and  a  nobleman  he  was  —  for  he  had  genius.  He  held  high 
rank  in  nature's  peerage.  But  this  was  not  distinction  enough 
in  the  eyes  of  some  of  his  colleagues,  and  the  majority  of  their 
party.  His  father  had  been  poor,  though  of  gentlemanly  birth  ; 
and  after  his  father's  death  his  mother  had  become  an  actress. 
Not  only  was  there  an  abiding  sense  of  these  facts  in  the  minds 
of  his  colleagues,  his  party,  and  his  opponents,  but  some  spread 
a  rumor,  which  met  him  from  time  to  time  in  his  life,  that  his  birth 
was  illegitimate.  The  same  was  said  in  the  case  of  Mr.  Huskis- 
son ;  and  in  both  cases  it  was  false. 

Mr.  Huskisson  was  the  son  of  a  gentleman  of  restricted  for- 
tune, who  possessed  a  small  estate  in  Staffordshire.  The  greater 
part  of  the  property  was  entailed  upon  him  ;  and  he  might  have 
led  the  life  of  a  country  gentleman,  if  his  talents  and  inclinations 
had  not  led  him  into  another  walk  of  life.  As  it  was,  he  became 
private  secretary  to  Lord  Gower,  the  British  ambassador  at 
Paris,  in  1790,  when  he  was  only  twenty  years  of  age.  Not 
long  afterwards  he  was  requested  by  Mr.  Dundas,  in  the  name 
of  the  cabinet,  to  accept  the  office  of  administering  the  Alien 


CHAP.  VI.]  CANNING  AND  HUSKISSON.  365 

Bill,  —  his  knowledge  of  foreign  languages  and  customs,  and  his 
gentlemanly  manners,  fitting  him  to  conduct  in  the  liest  mode  the 
affairs  of  the  immigrants  landing  in  our  ports.  The  Stafford- 
shire estate  descending  to  him  about  this  time,  considerably  bur- 
dened with  charges  on  account  of  the  younger  members  of  the 
family,  he  chose  his  way  of  life,  declined  that  of  a  country  gen- 
tleman, cut  off  the  entail,  and  devoted  himself  to  the  public  ser- 
vice. In  his  twenty-sixth  year  he  became  under-secretary  of 
state  for  war  and  the  colonies,  under  Mr.  Dundas. 

As  for  Mr.  Canning,  he  was  descended  from  an  ancient  family 
of  gentry,  one  branch  of  which  —  that  from  which  the  statesman 
was  descended  —  went  to  Ireland  two  centuries  before  his  time, 
to  live  on  lands  presented  to  them  by  James  I.  Mr.  Canning's 
father  was  called  to  the  bar,  but  he  never  practised.  Literature 
beguiled  him  from  the  pursuit  of  law  ;  and  lie  died  early.  Under 
the  pressure  of  debt,  he  had  consented  to  cut  off  the  entail  of  the 
Irish  estate,  which  he  soon  saw  settled  on  his  younger  brother. 
He  married  a  beautiful  young  lady  of  eighteen,  of  good  family  — 
Miss  Costello ;  and  their  son,  the  statesman,  was  born  on  the 
llth  of  Apr  1,  1770,  when  the  friend  and  colleague  of  his  after- 
years,  Mr.  Huskisson,  was  exactly  a  month  old.  The  father  was 
wretched  at  the  thought  of  having  made  his  son  landle-s ;  his 
cares  had  long  preyed  upon  his  health ;  and  he  died  on  his  child's 
first  birthday,  leaving  the  young  widow  wholly  destitute  ;  and  it 
was  then  that,  seeing  no  other  resource  for  a  maintenance,  she 
went  upon  the  stage.  It  is  not  going  aside  from  our  purposes 
to  relate  these  particulars  of  family  history.  The  cry  against 
the  origin  of  Mr.  Canning  and  Mr.  Huskisson  was  so  vehement, 
and  so  earnestly  echoed  by  the  people  themselves,  when  given 
out  by  the  aristocracy,  that  there  is  clearly  some  strong  signifi- 
cance in  it,  which  makes  it  a  sign  of  the  times.  The  aristocracy 
ought  not  to  have  complained  of  the  birth  of  either  of  these 
men ;  and  the  people  ought  not  to  have  been  discontented  at  the 
spectacle  of  men  without  hereditary  fortune  devoting  themselves 
to  the  public  service,  while  complaining  of  the  influence  of  he- 
reditary fortune  in  unfitting  politicians  for  popular  sympathy. 
What  the  people  ought  to  have  felt  under  such  an  incident  of 
government,  Mr.  Canning  indicated  in  one  of  his  Liverpool 
speeches,  after  his  election  in  1816  ;x  a  speech  for  which  certain 
aristocratic  families  never  forgave  him,  and  for  which  they  made 
his  sensitive  spirit  suffer  to  his  latest  day.  "  There  is,"  said  Mr. 
Canning  to  his  Liverpool  constituents,  ''yet  a  heavier  charge 
than  either  of  those  that  I  have  stated  to  you.  It  is,  gentlemen, 
that  I  am  an  adventurer.  To  this  charge,  as  I  understand  it,  I 
am  willing  to  plead  guilty.  A  representative  of  the  people,  I 
1  Speeches,  p.  155. 


366  HISTORY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [Boon  H. 

am  one  of  the  people  ;  and  T  present  myself  to  those  who  choose 
me  only  with  the  claims  of  character  —  be  they  what  they  may 
—  unaccredited  by  patrician  patronage,  or  party  recommenda- 
tion. Nor  is  it  in  this  free  country,  where,  in  every  walk  of 
life,  the  road  of  honorable  success  is  open  to  every  individual,  — 
I  am  sure  it  is  not  in  this  place  that  I  shall  be  expected  to  apol- 
ogize for  so  presenting  myself  to  your  choice.  I  know  there  is 
a  political  creed  which  assigns  to  a  certain  combination  of  great 
families  a  right  to  dictate  to  the  sovereign,  and  to  influence  the 
people  ;  and  that  this  doctrine  of  hereditary  aptitude  for  admin- 
istration is,  singularly  enough,  most  prevalent  among  those  who 
find  nothing  more  laughable  than  the  principle  of  legitimacy  in 
the  crown.  To  this  theory  I  have  never  subscribed.  If  to  de- 
pend directly  upon  the  people,  as  their  representative  in  Parlia- 
ment ;  if,  as  a  servant  of  the  crown,  to  lean  on  no  other  support 
than  that  of  public  confidence,  —  if  that  be  to  be  an  adventurer, 
I  plead  guilty  to  the  charge ;  and  I  would  not  exchange  that  sit- 
uation, to  whatever  taunts  it  may  expose  me,  for  all  the  advan- 
tages which  might  be  derived  from  an  ancestry  of  a  hundred  gen- 
erations." 

It  is  easy  to  see  why,  after  this  avowal,  his  aristocratic  com- 
rades and  foes  dwelt  much  on  what  they  called  •'  the  lowness  of 
his  origin."  The  question  is,  why  so  many  of  the  people  were 
forever  taunting  him  with  it,  and  with  being  an  adventurer.  It 
was  not  only,  in  this  case,  from  that  strong  infusion  of  the  aristo- 
cratic spirit  into  the  English  character  which  imkes  the  town- 
footman,  the  country  shop-keeper,  and  the  laborer  in  the  hamlet 
value  the  claims  of  birth  as  highly  as  any  nobleman  in  the  peer- 
age. Mr.  Canning  and  Mr.  Huskisson  were  too  well  born  to  l»e 
subject  to  popular  scorn  on  this  ground.  It  was  because  they 
were  not,  till  latterly,  on  the  popular  side.  Men  of  the  people, 
their  tendencies  were  aristocratic ;  and  they  were  seen  in  com- 
pany, and  supposed  in  league,  with  the  Eldons  and  the  Welling- 
tons —  with  the  comrades  of  Sidmouth  and  Castlereagh.  As 
time  passed  on,  and  disclosed  the  gn-at  truth  that  a  new  period 
had  begun,  the  jealousy  and  dislike  of  the  aristocratic  observers 
of  these  two  men  became  aggravated  —  mixed  up  as  it  was  with 
fear  of  change ;  and,  from  the  same  cause,  their  footing  with  the 
nation  improved ;  till  the  popular  confidence  in  the  case  of  Hus- 
kisson reached  the  point  of  calm  trust  and  gratitude  for  eminent 
services;  and  in  the  case  of  Canning,  a  pitch  of  high  enthusi- 
asm which  caused  the  news  of  his  death  to  be  received  with  an 
universal  groan. 

What  dismay  the  introduction  of  the  new  men  caused  among 
the  old  is  shown,  with  a  sort  of  ludicrous  pathos,  in  the  corre- 
spondence of  the  Lord  Chancellor  at  this  time.  He  was  always 


CHAP.  VI.]  THE  LORD   CHANCELLOR.  367 

talking  of  retiring,  on  account  of  the  disgrace  the  government 
was  incurring  by  its  advancing  liberalism.  At  every  new  step 
taken,  he  threatened  to  retire  ;  but  he  did  not  do  it.  He  opposed 
and  groaned  over  every  proposition  made  by  his  colleagues  ;  and 
it  seems  as  if  even  the  Premier,  his  old  friend,  had  grown  tired 
of  consulting  him  ;  and  especially  about  the  appointment  of  men 
whose  measures  and  conduct  he  would  be  sure  to  disapprove  as 
they  developed  themselves.  The  behavior  seems  cavalier ;  but 
it  must  really  have  been  difficult  to  know  what  to  do  with  a  man 
who  would  neither  act  heartily  with  his  colleagues  nor  leave 
them.  "  The  '  Courier '  of  last  night,"  writes  the  Lord  Chancellor 
to  his  brother,1  "  announces  Mr.  Huskisson's  introduction  into  the 
cabinet ;  —  of  the  intention  or  the  fact  I  have  no  other  communi- 
cation. Whether  Lord  Sidmouth  has  or  not,  I  don't  know :  but 
really  this  is  rather  too  much.  Looking  at  the  whole  history  of 
this  gentleman,  I  don't  consider  this  introduction,  without  a  word 
said  about  the  intention,  as  I  should  perhaps  have  done  with  re- 
spect to  some  persons  that  have  been,  or  might  be,  brought  into 
cabinet ;  but  turning  out  one  man,  and  introducing  another  in  the 
way  all  this  is  done,  is  telling  the  Chancellor  that  he  should  not 
give  them  tire  trouble  of  disposing  of  him,  but  should  —  not 
treated  as  a  chancellor  —  cease  to  be  a  chancellor.  What  makes 
it  worse  is,  that  the  great  man  of  all  has  a  hundred  times  most 
solemnly  declared  that  no  connection  of  a  certain  person's  should 
come  in."  (Lord  Liverpool  had  declared  that  no  friend  of  Can- 
ning's should  come  in.)  "  There  is  no  believiilg  one  word  any- 
body says  ;  and  what  makes  the  matter  still  worse  is,  that  every- 
body acquiesces  most  quietly,  and  waits  in  all  humility  and 
patience,  till  their  own  turn  comes."  It  is  plain  that  the  world 
was  rolling  past  the  steadfast  old  Chancellor,  and  carrying  every- 
body with  it  but  himself.  The  wind  that  it  made  chilled  him  a? 
it  swept  by ;  and  he  was  troubled  at  the  void  that  it  left  about 
him.  He  called  out,  sometimes  angrily  and  sometimes  piteously, 
to  the  world,  to  come  back  and  stand  where  it  did  before  ;  but 
the  world  was  fairly  on  its  way  now,  and  could  not  stop  to  listen 
to  him  ;  so  the  old  man  had  to  cheer  himself  with  the  comforts 
of  his  conscience  — that  most  comfortable  conscience  which  never 
gave  him  any  trouble,  but  always  so  much  solace  !  Perhaps  this 
conscience  of  his  would  have  stirred  so  far  as  to  make  him  re 
tire,  if  he  could,  amidst  his  many  prophesyings,  have  foreseen 
how  soon  it  would  be  said  of  the  man  now  in  question,  —  "  of  Mr. 
Huskisson,2  in  particular,  against  whom  every  species  of  ribald 
abuse  has  been  cast,  we  have  no  hesitation  in  saying1,  that  he  has 
done  more  to  improve  our  commercial  policy  during  the  short 
period  since  he  became  president  of  the  Board  of  Trade,  than  all 
i  Life  of  Lord  Eldou,  ii.  p.  468.  a  Edinburgh  Review,  Sept.  1826,  p.  359. 


368  HISTORY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [BOOK  II. 

the  ministers  who  have  preceded  him  for  the  last  hundred 
years."  But  the  Chancellor  still  only  talked  of  retiring ;  only 
wrote  to  Lord  Liverpool  that  he  had  no  wish  to  remain  Chan- 
cellor, believing,  as  he  did,  that  all  who  remained  —  that  is, 
acted  with  the  two  "  adventurers  "  —  would  "  stand  a  very  good 
chance  of  being  disgraced."1  And  how  was  it,  with  regard  to 
this  matter  of  disgrace,  to  be  brought  upon  the  cabinet  by  this 
"  adventurer  "  ?  "  And  it  o'ught  to  be  remembered  to  his 
honor,"  the  "  Edinburgh  Review  "  says  of  Mr.  Huskisson,2  "  that 
the  measures  he  has  suggested,  and  the  odium  thence  arising, 
have  not  been  proposed  and  incurred  by  him  in  the  view  of 
serving  any  party  purpose,  but  solely  because  he  believed,  and 
most  justly,  that  these  measures  were  sound  in  principle,  and 
calculated  to  promote  the  real  and  lasting  interests  of  the  public." 
A  new  period  had  indeed  set  in.  The  "  combination  of  great 
families  "  had  been  conscientious  in  their  way ;  in  discharging 
their  responsibility  to  their  "  party,"  and  toiling  and  endeavoring  to 
achieve  its  "  purposes."  Now,  here  was  a  man  out  of  their  pale 
—  and  therefore  an  "adventurer"  —  who  ruled  in  his  province 
for  "  the  real  and  lasting  interests  of  the  public."  When  Wil- 
liam Hu~ki>son  and  his  period  came  in,  it  was  certainly  time  for 
Lord  Chancellor  Eldon  to  go  out,  for  his  period  was  indisputably 
expiring. 

And  now,  for  the  coming  in  of  Huskisson's  times. 

During  the  war,  when  manufactures  and  commerce  were  in  an 
The  debt  and  artificial  state,  the  British  people  had  paid  an  amount 
taxation.  of  taxes  ^yhich  now  appears  scarcely  credible.  What 
should  we  think  of  having  to  pay  now,  in  taxes  and  loans,  never 
less,  and  usually  more,  than  a  hundred  millions  a  year.  Yet 
this  is  what  was  paid  from  1805  to  1818.  In  1813,  the  amount 
paid  in  was  176.346,023^.  And  in  raising  this  amount  of  pro- 
ceeds, great  injury  was  done  by  the  method  of  collection,  which 
was  expensive  and  burdensome  to  excess.  Mr.  Vansittart  did  not 
understand  his  business ;  and  no  one  seems  to  have  been  able  to 
teach  it  to  him,  or  anxious  to  bid  him  learn  it.  He  seems  never 
to  have  perceived  that  to  double  a  tax  is  not  to  double  its  pro- 
ceeds. He  did  not  consider  that  the  lower  ranks  of  society  are 
the  largest  in  number;  and  that  numbers  lessen  with  increase 
of  rank  either  of  birth  or  money.  He  never  could  see  that  if  a 
tax  was  doubled  —  a  tax  on  any  commodity  or  usage  — a  certain 
number  of  persons  would  give  up  the  commodity  or  usage,  from 
inability  to  pay  the  heavy  tax ;  and  that  those  who  would  cease 
to  pay  would  be  the  poorer — that  is,  the  larger  class.  If  Mr. 
Vansittart  wanted  more  money,  he  doubled  a  tax,  reckoned  on 
double  the  former  amount  of  proceeds,  prepared  and  presented 
l  Life  of  Lord  Eldon,  ii.  p.  468.  "  Edinburgh  Review,  Sept.  1826,  p.  359. 


CHAP.  VI.]  THE   DEBT  AND   TAXATION.  369 

his  estimates  on  this  supposition  —  was,  of  course,  disappointed, 
arid  had  recourse  to  loans,  or  resorted  to  the  sinking-fund ;  or  in. 
some  Avay  plunged  deeper,  till  he  could  induce  the  House  to  in- 
crease some  other  tax.  Such  was  the  method  of  administration 
which  gave  advantage  to  seditious  declaimers,  and  enabled  Mr. 
Cobbett  to  cany  with  triumph,  on  the  hustings  at  Norwich,  reso- 
lutions in  favor  of  applying  the  funds  of  the  Church  and  the 
crown-lands  to  the  payment  of  the  debt,  abolishing  all  pensions, 
and  suspending  almost  every  kind  of  income,  for  purposes  of 
relief  from  taxation.  It  was  clear  that  the  pressure  of  taxation 
was  now  too  great  to  be  borne ;  and  that  something  must  be 
done  to  arrest  the  demoralizing  discussion  of  the  question,  whether 
the  debt  could  not  somehow  be  got  rid  of. 

Those  days  appear  to  us  not  very  remote ;  yet  it  is  difficult 
to  believe  how  little  remote  they  are  when  we  call  to  mind  the 
way  in  which  the  debt  was  talked  over.  A  large  number  of 
gentlemen  contrived  to  convince  themselves  and  one  another  that 
the  debt  was  a  source  of  public  wealth  —  a  name  or  imagination 
which  capitalists  could  trade  in  for  mutual  advantage,  and  for  a 
share  in  which  rich  foreigners  would  pay  hard  cash  into  the 
country.  Such  men  would  not,  of  course,  have  the  debt  dimin- 
ished. An  opposite  and  daily  increasing  party,  which  was  not 
confined  to  those  who  found  it  hard  to  live,  wanted  to  sweep  it 
away  altogether.  It  was  not  uncommon,  in  those  days,  to  meet 
with  persons  who  called  themselves  politicians,  who  would  say 
openly :  "  Ah !  you  know,  after  all  that  can  be  said,  we  must 
come  to  the  sponge."  The  Cobbetts,  Hunts,  and  Wolseleys  of 
those  days  —  the  shrewd,  the  ignorant,  and  the  weak  leaders  of 
the  people,  not  only  spoke  strongly  —  as  they  might  reasonably 
do  —  of  the  hardship  of  the  annual  payment  of  the  interest  of 
the  debt,  but  misled  multitudes  as  to  the  origin  and  nature  of  the 
debt  itself.  They  not  only  exposed  the  badness  of  the  principle 
of  mortgaging  the  industry  of  future  generations  ;  and  showed 
the  mischief  of  diverting  annually  from  productive  purposes  so 
many  millions  as  go  to  pay  the  fundholder  ;  and  ridiculed  the 
sinking-fund :  all  this  was  fair  enough ;  but  they  went  so  far  as 
to  represent  the  debt  as  incurred  by  the  aristocracy,  for  personal 
objects  hostile  to  the  national  interest ;  and  they  clamored  for  a 
confiscation  of  the  property  of  the  crown,  and  the  Church,  and 
the  aristocracy ;  and,  failing  these,  for  an  expunging  of  the  debt, 
throwing  the  support  of  the  fundholders  wholly  on  the  aristoc- 
racy. There  were  others  who  understood  the  origin  and  prog- 
ress of  the  debt  rightly  enough  ;  and  who  saw  that,  however 
indefensible  was  the  great  increase  of  it  during  the  wars  of  the 
last  century,  the  most  vast  and  rapid  increase  of  it  took  place 
during  the  present  century,  when  this  prodigious  expenditure 
VOL.  ii.  24 


370  HISTORY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [BOOK  II. 

had  become  indispensable  to  our  national  existence.  While 
mourning  over  the  American  war,  and  other  unhappy  conflicts, 
which  raised  the  debt  from  129  millions  in  177o  to  360  at  the 
peace  of  Amiens  in  1802,  they  remembered  that  the  vital  strug- 
gle which  ensued,  between  1803  and  the  overthrow  of  Napoleon 
in  1815,  added  420  millions  to  the  capital  of  the  debt,  —  an 
addition  for  which  it  seems  impossible  to  blame,  wiih  any  show 
of  reason,  any  class  or  party  at  home.  But  those  who  understood 
accurately  the  origin  of  the  debt  fell  into  strange  errors  about 
the  means  of  its  liquidation.  Some  trusted  to  tlie  sinking-fund, 
even  up  to  this  date  and  beyond  it.  They  did  not  see  the 
double  mischief  connected  with  the  sinking-fund :  that,  while 
there  was  in  reality  any  surplus  revenue  applicable  to  its  purposes, 
the  government  would,  almost  of  course,  help  itself  to  the  money, 
under  any  temporary  embarrassment,  to  avoid  proposing  new 
taxes  while  the  people  found  it  more  and  more  difficult  to  pay  the 
old  ;  and  then,  that  the  commissioners  of  the  sinking-fund  would 
borrow  to  make  up  the  deficiency.  Absurd  a.*  it  appeal's  in  the 
case  of  an  individual  that  a  man  should  borrow  in  one  direction 
to  pay  a  debt  in  another  —  paying  perhaps  higher  interest  to  his 
new  creditor  than  to  the  old  —  and  should  then  call  for  congrat- 
ulations on  the  decrease  of  his  first  debt,  this  is  exactly  what  was 
done  by  the  government,  prior  to  this  date.  Mr.  Pitt  no  doubt 
honestly  believed  that  the  money  accruing  to  the  sinking-fund 
would  be  allowed  to  accumulate  untouched  ;  but  Mr.  Vansittart 
declared  in  1813,  that  the  sum  produced  by  the  sinking-fund 
"  would  be  an  instrument  of  great  force  in  the  hands  of  parlia- 
ment, which  might  lead  to  the  most  important  results  "  ;  and 
Lord  Londonderry,  just  before  his  death,  avowed  that  '•  he  had 
never  represented  the  sinking-fund  as  a  saving  to  be  held  sacred, 
but  as  a  mode  of  placing  a  large  sum  at  the  disposal  of  parliament, 
to  be  by  them  disposed  as  might  be  thought  most  equitable, 
whether  for  the  relief  of  a  pressing  exigency  of  the  present  day, 
or  for  the  security  of  posterity."  While  this  extraordinary 
laxity  of  profession  was  used  by  members  of  the  government, 
there  was  no  less  laxity  in  the  actual  management  of  the  so- 
called  fund.  The  operations  were  curious  enough  in  many  ways  ; 
but  the  result  was  the  most  curious  of  all.  While  ministers 
were  announcing  that  the  sinking-fund  had  paid  off  nearly 
twenty-five  millions  of  the  debt  since  1817,  the  public  were 
wondering  how  it  was  that  the  interest  of  the  debt  was  heavier 
by  700,000/.  By  borrowing,  with  all  manner  of  ingenious  and 
costly  devices,  on  the  one  hand,  to  pay  on  the  other,  the  man- 
agers had  actually  increased  the  debt  by  seven  millions  and  a 
half  since  1817,  and  had  added  700,000/.  to  the  interest.  Since 
the  close  of  the  war,  the  increase  was  upwards  of  eleven  millions. 
Something  must  be  done. 


CHAP.  VI.]  THE  DEBT  AND  TAXATION.  371 

One  process  which  had  been  begun  in  1808  for  the  liquidation 
of  the  debt  has  acted  well,  as  far  as  it  has  gone  ;  and  it  is 
probable  that  whenever  any  effectual  reduction  of  the  debt  takes 
place,  it  will  be  through  a  large  extension  of  this  method,  —  that 
of  converting  permanent  into  terminable  annuities, —  at  some 
present  sacrifice,  of  course,  but  with  certain  future  relief.  But 
tliis  present  sacrifice,  this  immediate  increase  of  charge,  was  the 
objectionable  feature  at  the  date  of  which  we  write,  when  the 
public  safety  required  a  lightening  of  the  burdens  of  the  people. 
In  Sir  H.  Parnell's  "  Financial  Reform  "  there  is  an  observation, 
that  "  if  all  the  loans  which  have  been  raised  since  the  beginning 
of  the  war  of  1739  had  been  borrowed  in  annuities  for  ninety- 
nine  years,  their  extinction  would  already  have  commenced." 
We  should  now  have  been  outgrowing  the  debt  from  year  to 
year,  and  feeling  its  shnckles  falling  off  incessantly  from  our  pro- 
ductive industry.  And  we  m;iy  prepare  for  the  emancipation 
of  a  future  generation  now,  by  adopting  this  method  in  our  day ; 
by  making  some  increased  sacrifice  to  pay,  for  the  sake  of  our 
children,  the  debt  incurred  by  our  fathers.  Mr.  Vansittart 
witnessed  the  action  of  this  method ;  and  so  did  Mr.  Robinson, 
his  successor ;  and  both  declared  their  approbation  of  it.  Yet, 
driven  hard  by  the  exigencies  of  the  times,  —  that  is,  by  the 
popular  discontent,  —  they  had  recourse  to  a  directly  opposite 
method  of  dealing  with  the  debt,  —  burdening  posterity,  for  the 
sake  of  a  very  slight  temporary  relief;  and  they  found  not  a  few 
followers  and  admirers  who  praised  both  schemes  hi  the  same 
breath. 

The  sum  required  in  1822  for  the  discharge  of  half-pay  and 
pensions  was  five  millions.  If  these  had  been  let  alone,  the 
whole  would  have  fallen  in  in  about  forty-five  years,  from  the 
dying  off  of  the  recipients.  But  the  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer 
conceived  a  project  of  converting  these  annually  diminishing 
claims  into  a  set  of  permanent  annuities  for  the  term  of  forty- 
five  years  ;  fixing  this  permanent  annuity  at  2,800,000/.,  and 
providing  by  its  immediate  sale  for  the  discharge  of  the  half-pay 
and  pensions,  with  some  considerable  surplus.  Nobody  bought 
in  the  first  year.  In  1823,  the  Bank  of  England  bought  a  por- 
tion of  the  long  annuity,  on  terms  which  afforded  the  people  of 
l*2o  to  1828  an  amount  of  nine  millions  and  a  half,  at  the 
expense  of  those  who  were  to  come  after  them,  and  who  are 
burdened  with  an  annual  payment  of  585,7  40/.  for  the  thirty- 
nine  succeeding  years.  Mr.  Vansittart  had  devised  this  scheme ; 
and  Mr.  Robinson  believed  himself  obliged  to  carry  it  through, 
though  the  circumstances  of  the  times  made  the  bargain  with 
the  bank  as  disadvantageous  in  its  terms  as  it  was  objectionable 
in  its  principle.  Strangely  enough,  Mr.  Robinson,  in  bringing 


872  HISTORY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [Boon  IL 

forward  his  budget,  in  this  spring  of  1823,  reckoned  twice  over 
a  sum  of  two  millions  expected  to  accrue  from  this  arrange- 
ment ;  so  that  the  declared  surplus  of  five  millions  which  was 
destined  to  reduce  the  debt  was  at  once  sunk  to  three. 

Such  was  the  state  of  the  affairs  of  the  debt,  at  the  date  of 
the  accession  to  office  of  the  new  men.  The  country  was  less 
afflicted  than  it  had  been ;  and  there  was  a  decided  revival  in 
manufactures  and  commerce.  But  the  pressure  of  taxation  was 
one  which  the  nation  was  beginning  to  declare  that  it  could  not 
and  would  not  bear,  after  eight  years  of  peace ;  and  so  loud  was 
the  cry  for  reform  of  parliament,  as  the  shortest  way  to  u 
remission  of  taxation,  that  it  was  time  for  government,  not  only 
to  consider,  but  to  show  what  could  be  done.  The  new  men 
were  as  heartily  annoyed  by  all  mention  of  reform  of  parliament 
as  their  predecessors  and  their  colleagues.  They  must  set  to 
work  to  obviate  it  by  improving  the  condition  of  the  nation. 

There  were  two  ways  of  doing  this.  One  was  to  lessen  the 
amount  of  the  taxes  ;  the  other  was  to  increase  the  ability  of  the 
people  to  pay  them.  Both  objects  were  good ;  but  in  the  first 
there  was  nothing  new  —  nothing  expansive  —  nothing  signif- 
icant of  a  better  time.  The  minister  who  lays  on  new  taxes, 
always  talks  about  taking  them  off  by  and  by  ;  and  when  they 
are  taken  off,  there  is  so  much  saving  to  so  many  individuals  — 
so  much  left  free  for  investment  in  productive  industry.  The 
process  is  good ;  and  it  is  pleasant  to  everybody,  from  the 
humblest  tax-payer,  who  saves  his  penny  in  his  weekly  wages,  to 
the  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer  himself,  who  announces  welcome 
news,  and  sees  smiles  on  every  face  in  return.  This  was  Mr. 
Robinson's  process ;  and  he  went  into  it  with  a  temper  so  benign 
and  sanguine,  that  he  did  not  always  come  out  of  the  experiment 
with  such  credit  as  he  anticipated.  He  became  known  by  the 
name  of  Prosperity  Robinson,  when  it  was  found,  year  after 
year,  that  he  underrated  drawbacks,  and  overrated  the  public 
condition ;  and  that  he  was  only  too  like  himself  when  he  ex- 
ulted in  the  reduction  of  the  debt  during  the  years  which  had 
actually  added  above  seven  millions  and  a  half  to  its  capital. 
In  this  spring  of  1823,  however,  the  minister's  tendency  to  op- 
timism was  not  fully  known  ;  and  his  announcement  of  a  lame 
reduction  of  taxation  was  received  with  enthusiasm,  though  his 
scheme  included  the  objectionable  arrangement  with  the  Bank, 
for  the  commutation  of  the  half-pay  and  pension  charges.  Sev- 
eral small  taxes,  annoying  in  their  operation,  were  taken  off 
altogether,  at  a  sacrifice  of  less  than  78,000/. :  such  as  taxes  on 
mixed  services,  on  occasional  gardeners,  on  the  lower  order  of 
taxed  carts,  and  some  of  the  horses,  mules,  and  ponies  used  in 
trade  and  husbandry.  There  was  a  reduction  of  the  window 


CHAP.  VI.l  COMMERCIAL  POLICY.  373 

tax  ;  fifty  per  cent,  was  taken  off  the  taxes  on  servants,  carriages, 
and  horses ;  and  Ireland  was  relieved  of  the  whole  of  the 
assessed  (axes.  In  the  preceding  year,  some  considerable  reduc- 
tions had  been  forced  upon  ministers,  who  had  taken  off  the 
greater  part  of  certain  very  onerous  taxes,  —  as  those  on  salt  and 
leather,  and  the  annual  malt  tax.  On  that  occasion,  the  late 
Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer  did  not  see  how  the  laboring  man 
needed  pity  for  paying  from  20s.  to  25*.  a  year  for  salt;  since  it 
was  paid  "in  almost  imperceptible  portions"  from  his  weekly 
wages :  but  he  was  compelled  to  try  what  the  laboring-man 
would  think  of  the  change.  Now,  a  year  later,  a  new  minister 
voluntarily  and  exultingly  came  forward  to  repeal  taxes  ;  and 
the  laboring  man,  tel.iug  over  his  weekly  wages  in  his  cottage, 
began  to  feel  that  there  was  good,  even  to  him,  in  peace  above 
war. 

The  other  way  to  improve  the  condition  of  the  nation  was  by 
increasing  their  ability  to  pay  their  taxes  ;  by  expand-  commercial 
ing  their  trade,  —  giving  them  an  increased  command  P°Ucy- 
of  the  materials  of  their  manufactures,  and  an  improved  security 
of  production,  sale,  and  returns.  In  every  direction,  the  agri- 
culture, manufactures,  and  commerce  of  England  were  ham- 
pered by  laws  and  arrangements  which,  originally  intended  for 
safeguards,  had  become  restrictions.  The  food  of  the  whole 
people  was  to  be  grown  in  their  own  island  ;  and  its  supply  was 
at  the  mercy  of  the  weather,  and  of  the  changing  state  of  men's 
minds  under  the  fluctuation  of  their  fortunes ;  so  that  the  prices 
of  corn  and  other  food,  the  rent  of  the  rich  and  the  loaf  of  the 
poor,  rose  and  fell  in  extremes  which  destroyed  all  confidence  and 
all  regularity ;  whereas,  if  the  world  were  laid  open  to  the  con- 
stant demand  of  the  nations,  the  abundance  of  one  region  would 
supply  the  deficiency  of  another,  and  a  natural  balance  would  be 
established.  As  far  as  was  possible,  the  same  ancient  plan  was 
pursued  with  regard  to  the  materials  of  manufactures.  Instead 
of  a  liberty  of  purchase  of  hemp,  silk,  wool,  timber,  &c.,  where 
they  could  be  had  best,  and  when  they  were  most  wanted,  all 
sorts  of  impediments  were  interposed  in  the  way  of  obtaining 
supplies  ;  and  production  was  rendered  difficult  and  scanty  in 
proportion.  Instead  of  a  liberty  of  sale  of  all  productions,  the 
producers  were  hampered  by  treaties  and  laws,  the  jealousies  of 
governments,  and  the  meddling  of  rulers,  till  the  markets  of  the 
world  were  brought  into  an  artificial  state  which  discouraged 
enterprise  and  industry,  by  making  them  cost  more,  in  money, 
risk,  and  anxiety,  than  they  were  worth.  In  truth,  the  methods 
which  had  been  devised  when  States  were  young  and  half-peo- 
pled, and  rulers  were  inexperienced,  were  now  outgrown.  They 
were  applicable  no  longer ;  and  now,  when  wars  were  over  for 


374  HISTORY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [BOOK  II. 

the  time,  and  countries  were  fully  peopled,  and  inventions  sprang 
up  every  day,  and  arts  and  economy  improved  from  year  to  year, 
it  was  necessary  that  men  should  h;»ve  more  liberty  to  produce 
and  to  exchange.  Society  was  now  large,  full,  and  busy  enough 
to  come  under  the  great  natural  laws  which  regulate  commu- 
nities of  men  as  infallibly  as  they  regulate  systems  of  worlds ; 
it  had  outgrown  the  superintendence  of  a  handful  of  managers 
who  once  thought  it  their  business  to  dispense  all  its  affairs 
according  to  their  own  notions.  When  Adams  ihe  mutineer 
found  himself  in  command  of  the  little  company  from  the  Bounty, 
and  ruler  of  their  island,  he  began  with  a  sort  of  paternal  rule. 
He  dictated  what  clothes  his  subjects  should  wear,  and  how  they 
should  enclose  their  gardens,  and  how  much  land  should  be  set 
apart  for  growing  yums,  and  who  much  for  maize  ;  and  he  might 
even  order  this  plant  to  be  watered,  and  that  to  be  sheltered,  and 
another  to  be  carefully  reared  in  a  seed-bed  ;  but  when  his  little 
company  had  spread  out  into  a  tribe,  he  could  rule  them  no 
longer  as  a  father,  but  as  a  legislator  and  judge.  His  business 
in  his  old  age  was  to  frame,  with  their  concurrence,  rules  of 
behavior,  which  he  was  to  see  enforced  ;  but  when  he  sat  before 
his  cottage  on  the  knoll,  and  looked  abroad  over  their  harvests, 
spreading  as  far  as  he  could  see,  and  saw  the  people  thronging  in 
their  market,  and  their  boats  going  to  and  fro  among  the  islands 
in  the  sea,  he  could  no  longer  dream  of  such  a  task  as  regulat- 
ing their  households  and  their  fortunes.  He  must  leave  them  to 
till  their  fields,  and  choose  their  fisliing-grounds,  and  dye  their 
webs,  and  sell  their  cargoes,  in  the  way  they  might  find  answer 
best  to  them ;  certain  that  what  was  most  conducive  to  the  pros- 
perity of  each  individual  family  must  tend  most  to  the  welfare 
of  the  whole  community.  Thus,  there  had  been  a  time  in  Eng- 
land when  the  King  and  his  advisers  had  ordained  what  clothes 
should  be  worn  by  the  different  classes  of  the  people ;  what 
prices  they  should  give  for  their  food ;  what  wa<res  they  should 
receive  for  their  labor.  When  that  close  interference  had  to  be 
given  up,  the  voice  and  hand  of  the  sovereign  and  the  legislature 
were  still  heard  and  felt  among  the  most  important  transactions 
of  production  and  trade,  spoiling  what  they  could  no  longer  reg- 
ulate. At  the  time  we  are  contemplating,  the  mischief  was 
found  to  be  pressing  very  heavily.  The  taxes  were  burden- 
some ;  the  supply  and  prices  of  food  were  precarious  and  fluctu- 
ating ;  and  when  the  sentinels  of  war  were  withdrawn  from  the 
boundaries  of  kingdoms  and  continents,  it  was  found  that  com- 
merce could  not  pass,  on  account  of  restrictions  at  home.  The 
nation  cannot  be  said  lo  have  had  a  clear  view  and  purpose  as  to 
what  should  be  done,  to  improve  its  ability  to  pay  its  taxes  ;  nor 
did  the  mind  of  any  statesman,  perhaps,  embrace  the  whole 


CHAP.  VI.]  COMMERCIAL  POLICY.  375 

scope  of  the  reform  now  to  be  instituted  ;  but  the  stir  throughout 
the  country  and  in  parliament,  during  this  session  of  1823, 
showed  the  general  sense  that  something  must  be  done ;  and  Mr. 
Huskisson  was  the  man  who  saw  furthest  into  the  nature  and 
necessity  —  the  philosophy  and  fact  of  the  case.  The  aim  at 
freedom  of  trade  was  not  at  present  a  great  national  idea,  like 
that  of  reform  of  parliament.  Men  were  going  unconsciously 
into  the  great  change  which  the  next  twenty  years  were  to  accom- 
plish ;  but,  on  looking  back  to  this  session  of  1823,  it  seems  that 
we  may  date  thence  the  emancipation  of  trade,  not  only  because 
Mr.  Huskisson  then  entered  the  cabinet  to  begin  the  work,  but 
because  the  need  of  the  work  being  begun  brought  Mr.  Huskis- 
son into  the  cabinet. 

The  novelty  and  terror  were  not,  in  this  case,  as  in  many,  in 
the  name  of  the  measures  required.  The  opponents  of  Catholic 
emancipation  and  parliamentary  reform  started  back  from  the 
very  names  ;  but  almost  everybody  professed  to  think  "  a  more 
liberal  commercial  policy,"  and  "  the  removal  of  restrictions  on 
trade,"  very  <rood  things.  The  difficulty  was,  that  every  step 
taken  to  attain  these  good  objects  was  desperately  contested. 
The  "  protection  "  of  each  particular  interest  was  so  fought  for, 
that  to  free  any  one  from  restriction  was  as  difficult  as  if  the  en- 
tire process  had  been  opposed  in  the  abstract.  In  a  subsequent 
session,  the  House,  which  had  already  begun  to  jest  on  the  ten- 
dency of  each  interest  to  recommend  "  a  liberal  commercial 
policy  "  for  every  one  but  itself,  was  brought  to  a  full  sense  of 
the  absurdity  of  this  by  the  zeal  of  an  honorable  representative 
of  a  place  abounding  in  glass-houses.  He  had  helped  to  take 
off  protecting  duties  from  a  great  variety  of  articles  in  which 
his  constituents  were  not  particularly  concerned ;  but  when 
green  glass  bottles  were  mentioned,  he  started  to  his  feet,  and 
vowed  he  would  defend  to  the  hist  the  protection  to  green  glass 
bottles.  This  was  one  difficulty.  Another  was  that  few  persons 
had  yet  learned  to  look  at  the  subject  in  the  large.  While  mul- 
titudes wished  for  a  relaxation,  few  dreamed  of  an  entire  re- 
moval of  restriction-;;  and  while  this  lasted,  reforms  worked 
imperfectly,  and  men  could  not  agree  how  much  to  aim  at. 

This  year  we  are  struck  by  the  fact  that  numerous  petitions 
were  presented  to  Parliament *  for  the  repeal  of  the  import- 
duties  on  foreign  wool,  while  the  manufacturers,  the  actual  peti- 
tioners, would  not  hear  of  the  free  exportation  of  wool.  The 
answer  they  received  was,  that  the  import-tax  now  yielded  a 
revenue  of  400,<»()0/.,  having  risen  to  that  from  250,000/. ;  that 
this  seemed  to  show  —  one  cannot  now  see  how  —  that  the  duty 
did  not  injure  manufactures,  while  it  was  very  important  as 
l  Annual  Register,  1823,  p.  119. 


376  HISTORY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [BOOK  IL 

revenue ;  bat  that  foreign  wool  should  be  admitted  free  when- 
ever the  manufacturers  would  agree  to  a  free  exportation.  —  a 
point  of  wisdom  which  they  had  not  attained.  An  improved 
Warehousing  Bill  was  passed  this  year,  with  much  difficulty.1 
Some  curious  facts  appeared  about  our  trade  with  India,  which 
pointed  further  than  people  then  saw  to  the  changes  which  the 
"West  India  Islands  were  to  undergo  hereafter.  Mr.  Whitmore 
desired  an  inquiry  into  the  duties  on  East  and  West  India 
sugar.  He  showed  that  before  the  trade  with  India  was  ren- 
dered open,  it  had  gone  on  in  its  own  small  way,  — drugs,  spices, 
silks,  and  a  few  inusl  ns.  being  sent  from  India,  and  paid  for 
with  bullion  from  Europe.  Now,  since  the  opening  of  the  trade, 
the  whole  business  had  assumed  a  new  aspect.  Instead  of  bul- 
lion, India  received  from  us  woollen  goods  to  the  amount  of  a 
million  and  a  half.  A  more  remarkable  thing  was,  that,  instead 
of  sending  us  her  fine  muslins,  India  sent  us  the  cotton  to  make 
them  of;  and  this  cotton  was  spun,  woven,  sent  back,  and  sold 
on  the  spot,  cheaper  than  the  inhabitants  could  sell  muslin  to 
each  other.  The  exports  to  India  of  manufactured  cotton 
amounted  already  to  above  a  million  per  annum.  The  thing 
now  desired  was,  that  India  should  be  permitted  to  pay  for  our 
manufactures  in  her  own  product  of  sugar,  —  having  little  other 
means  of  payment,  and  our  trade  with  that  vast  and  populous 
country  being  henceforth  limitable  only  by  restriction  on  her 
means  of  paying  for  what  we  could  supply.  It  was  not  likely 
that  Mr.  Whitmore  would  obtain  his  object,  implicated  as  it  was 
with  the  subject  of  West  India  slavery ;  but  he  had  the  honor 
of  driving  Mr.  Huskisson  himself  to  his  wit's  end  to  defend  the 
existing  state  of  the  sugar-duties,  and  get  rid  of  the  facts  about 
India ;  and  it  was  one  of  the  long  series  of  preparatory  steps 
which  are  still  leading  us  on  towards  an  ultimate  free  trade  in 
sugar,  through  a  wilderness  of  difficulties  caused  by  former  vi- 
cious restrictions,  not  only  on  freedom  of  trade,  but  on  the  liberty 
of  man. 

The  silk  manufacturers  stirred  this  year  against  the  bad 
Spiuifieids  political  economy  of  a  former  reign.  When  the  silk 
Acte-  manufacture  was  almost  entirely  confined  to  Spital- 

fields,  statutes  were  passed  empowering  the  magistrates  to  fix  the 
amount  of  wages,  and  settle  a  good  many  other  matters  which 
lay  pretty  widely  out  of  then*  province.  The  manufacture 
could  not  flourish  under  this  kind  of  superintendence,  as  it  now 
did  in  other  parts  of  the  country  where  no  such  meddling  was 
authorized ;  and  it  was  clear  that  the  Spitalti  Ids  manufacture 
must  perish  utterly,  unless  left  free  to  compete  with  that  of 
other  districts.  The  reasonableness  of  this  was  clear  enough ; 
l  Annual  Register,  1323,  p.  102. 


CHAP.  VI.]  NAVIGATION  ACTS.  377 

and  the  House  seemed  ready  to  repeal  the  restrictive  acts,  when 
Mr.  T.  Fowell  Buxton  presented  a  petition  signed  by  eleven 
thousand  journeymen  silk-weavers,  who  supposed  that  their 
bread  was  gone  if  their  wages  were  no  longer  to  be  fixed  by 
law.  The  honorable  members  were  not  convinced,  but  they  were 
daunted  by  the  ''  dismay  and  alarm  "  of  the  journeymen  ;  and 
some  of  them  begged  for  delay.  Mr.  Huskisson  saw  no  use  in 
delay  in  following  up  a  principle  which  all  agreed  to  be  sound ; 
but,  sound  as  the  principle  was  declared  to  be.1  the  majority  on 
the  second  reading  of  the  bill  was  only  8,  in  a  House  of  128. 
On  the  third  reading,2  the  majority  was  still  only  13.  This  is  suffi- 
ciently remarkable  at  a  date  so  late  as  1823;  but  the  ultimate 
fate  of  the  bill  is  a  yet  more  wonderful  circumstance.  The 
Lords  were  afraid  to  alter  old  laws  in  a  hurry.  The  Lord 
Chancellor  especially,  while  professing  not  to  understand  much 
of  political  economy,  implored  their  lordships  not  to  touch  any 
old  laws  without  abundant  delay.3  The  peers  introduced  several 
amendments  into  the  bill,  which  would  have  continued  to  the 
magistrates  the  power  of  fixing  wa^es,  while  kindly  permitting 
the  manufacturers  to  invest  tlieir  capital  where  they  pleased, 
instead  of  confining  them,  as  hitherto,  within  a  distance  of  ten 
miles  from  the  Royal  Exchange.  If  the  bill  thus  amended  had 
passed,  its  operation  would  have  been,  of  course,  to  drive  the 
capitalists  to  some  manufacturing  district  where  they  could  pur- 
sue their  business  free  from  magisterial  interference,  leaving  the 
eleven  thousand  petitioners  unemployed  and  helpless.  But  the 
promoters  of  the  bill  disowned  it  when  loaded  with  vicious 
amendments  ;  and  it  dropped  for  the  time.  The  historical  fact 
of  its  discussion  at  so  late  a  date  of  our  history,  when  Mr.  Hus- 
kisson said  he  could  hardly  account  for  the  existence  of  such  a 
statute,  is  wortli  the  trouble  it  gave  at  the  time,  and  the  small 
pains  of  noticing  it  here. 

The  most  important  change  which  took  place  now,  or  had  ever 
taken  place,  in  relation  to  commercial  freedom,  was  opened,  to 
parliament  and  the  coun'ry,  on  June  the  6th,  by  Mr.  Huskisson, 
in  a  committee  of  the  House. 

The  system  of  Navigation  Acts  had  begun  in  Cromwell's  time, 
when  it  occurred  to  the  statesmen  of  the  day  that  an   Navigation 
everlasting  commerce  might  be  secured  to  the  shipping  Acts- 
of  Great  Britain,  if  the  productions  of  Asia,  Africa,  and  America 
were    permitted    to   be   brought  in  only  in  British  ships,  com- 
manded only,  and  manned  chiefly,  by  British  subjects.     A  law  to 
this  effect  was  made  in  the  12th   year  of  Charles  II.;  and  the 
same  law  imposed  duties  on  European  produce  a'so,  if  brought 
in  foreign  vessels,  which  secured  the  monopoly  to  British  ship- 
l  Hansard,  ix.  p.  382.  2  Ibid.  p.  818.  8  Ibid.  p.  1532. 


378  HISTORY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [BOOK  H. 

ping.  The  plan  appeared  to  work  well  till  after  the  American 
war;  but  then,  American  ships,  which  had  before  enjoyed  the 
privileges  of  those  of  the  mother-country,  were  excluded  with 
those  of  all  other  foreign  states.  They  came  to  England  in  bal- 
last, while  British  vessels  carried  cargoes  both  ways.  It  could 
not  be  supposed  that  they  would  submit  to  this ;  and  the  United 
States  government  imposed  the  same  restrictions  on  British  ships 
that  their  own  vessel-  suffered  under.  Then  the  ridiculous  spec- 
tacle was  seen  of  the  ships  of  both  countries  goin°r  in  ballast,  in 
order  to  return  with  cargoes ;  the  consumers  of  the  cargoes  hav- 
ing, of  course,  to  pay  for  the  expensiveness  of  the  vovage.  The 
double  freight  was  actually  paid  by  the  consumers  of  both 
countries  lill  1815,  when  the  two  governments  agreed  to  repeal 
the  restrictive  duties.  The  wedge  was  now  introduced  which 
was  to  break  up  the  monopoly  all  over  the  field  of  commerce. 
In  1822.  Mr.  Wallace,  president  of  the  Board  of  Trade,  carried 
five  bills 1  which  relaxed  the  restrictions  to  a  considerable  extent 
with  regard  to  the  shipping  of  other  countries.  This  was  done 
amidst  the  most  doleful  prophecies  of  the  ruin  of  our  foreign  trade, 
and  the  most  angry  remonstrances  on  behalf  of  the  shipping 
interest  of  England ;  but  the  thing  must  be  done,  for  Portugal 
had  retaliated ;  *  the  Netherlands  had  decreed  a  premium  of  ten 
per  cent  on  all  merchandise  imported  in  Dutch  bottoms,  to  take 
effect  at  a  certain  date,  if  England  did  not  change  her  policy ; 
and  Prussia  had  raised  the  dues  on  all  British  vesseL-i,  and  de- 
clared her  intention  to  retaliate  further,  if  England  did  not 
surrender  her  monopoly.  The  immediate  consequence  of  such 
relaxation  as  took  pla.-e  in  1822,  was  a  stimulus  to  commerce 
which  surprised  the  croakers.  They  insisted  that  the  briskness 
would  not  last ;  but  it  was  necessary  to  try ;  for  Prus-ia  was 
firm  in  her  retaliatory  intentions,  while  expressing  an  enlightened 
desire  for  freedom  of  commerce.  The  Prussian  minister  de- 
clared, in  his  note  on  the  subject,  the  principle  held  by  his 
government,  —  **  that  reciprocal  commercial  restrictions  were 
reciprocal  nuisances,  prejudicial  to  all  nations  having  reciprocal 
interests,  and  particularly  to  those  engaged  in  extensive  com- 
merce ;  and  that  the  policy  of  Prussia  was  to  substitute,  in  the 
place  of  reciprocal  prohibitions,  reciprocal  facilities."  The  time 
was  now  come  for  deciding  whether  the  vessels  of  all  States 
were  to  go  empty  one  way,  charging  all  consumers  double 
freight;  or  whether  they  should  fetch  and  carry  all  ihey  could 
for  the  same  cost,  to  the  great  extension  of  commerce,  and  in 
natural  justice  to  the  consumers  of  all  countries.  It  hardly 
needs  to  be  pointed  out  that  foreign  States  would  soon  have 
agreed  to  dispense  with  British  shipping,  as  far  as  possible,  and 
i  Annual  Register,  1822,  p.  i»2  a  Huskisson's  Speeches,  ii.  p.  204. 


CHAP.  VI.]  THE  RECIPROCITY  BILL.  379 

to  supply  one  another  by  means  of  a  less  expensive  commerce 
than  hers.  The  time  was  now  come  for  deciding  on  the  principle, 
and  decreeing  the  destiny,  of  our  commerce  ;  and  Mr.  Huskisson, 
on  this  6th  of  June,1  proposed  his  Reciprocity  of  Duties  Bill. 
By  this  bill  all  duties  and  drawbacks  were  to  be  imposed  and 
allowed  on  all  merchandise  equally,  whether  carried  in  and  out 
by  British  or  foreign  vessels.  A  provision  was  added,  that  the 
King  in  council  should  still  have  power  to  reciprocate  restriction. 
Under  this  authority,  the  former  restrictions  were  to  be  contin- 
ued towards  any  State  which  should  continue  to  impose  disad- 
vantages on  British  shipping.  The  case  was  so  clear  —  the 
pressure  of  the  circumstances,  if  not  the  principle  —  that  the 
bill  passed  the  Commons  by  a  majority  of  5  to  1  —  75  to  15. 
One  significant  remark  was  made,  just  before  the  division,  which 
should  not  escape  the  notice  of  an  observer  of  those  times.  "  Mr. 
Stuart  Wortley  thought  that  the  principles  which  now  began  to 
work  in  regard  to  commercial  regulations,  must  ere  long  be  ap- 
plied to  those  of  agriculture."  2  The  great  change  now  "  began 
to  work  "  ;  and  this  session  will  ever  be  a  marked  one  accord- 
ingly- 

The  outcry  of  the  ship-owners  was  great  —  almost  as  loud  as 
that  of  the  agricultural  interest.  Their  grievances  were  real ; 
but  they  mistook  their  remedy.  The  most  important  of  their 
body  possessed  ships  which  were  built  when  tlte  materials  of 
shipbuilding  were  dear ;  whereas  ships  were  now  daily  brought 
into  use  which  were  built  with  comparative  cheapness.  Some  of 
these  cheaper  ships-  were  British ;  but  the  foreign  ones  had  the 
further  advantage  of  their  timber  not  being  subject  to  the 
heavy  duty  on  Baltic  timber,  which  our  ship-owners  had  been 
able  to  bear  during  the  war,  but  now  found  very  onei'ous.  Mr. 
Huskisson  noticed  this,  in  his  closing  speech  on  the  Reciprocity 
Bill,  and  pointed  to  a  time  when  this  duty  might  be  remitted. 
He  saw,  what  the  ship-owners  could  not  then  see,  that  their  hope 
of  revived  prosperity  lay  in  a  further  liberation  of  commerce, 
and  not  in  an  attempted  return  to  old  restrictions  now  become 
impracticable.  Mr.  Huskisson  offered  a  benefit  to  the  shipping 
interest  which  deprived  them  of  all  reasonable  ground  of  com- 
plaint ;  but  they  would  not  accept  it.  He  offered  to  grant  to 
Briti-h  shipbuilders  a  drawback  equal  to  all  the  duties  paid  upon 
the  materials  used  in  constructing  and  equipping  their  vessels. 
The  ship-owners  declined  this,  in  the  fear  that  a  stimulus  would 
thus  be  given  to  shipbuilding  at  home.  It  is  plain  that  they 
could  not  have  at  once  cheap  ships  and  the  monopoly  claimed  on 
account  of  dearness  of  build.  They  could  not  now  have  the 
latter,  and  they  refused  the  former  advantage ;  and  bitier  were 
i  Hansard,  ix.  p.  T98.  2  ibid.  p.  1439. 


380  HISTORY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [Boos  II. 

their  complaints,  at  that  time,  as  they  are  even  at  this  day.  But 
in  a  little  while  they  cease  to  obtain  any  pity  from  those  who 
knew  the  facts  of  their  case.  From  the  time  of  the  passage  of 
the  Reciprocity  Acts  a  rapid  increase  in  British  shipping  took 
place.  In  the  last  nineteen  years  of  the  restrictive  system,  the 
increase  in  British  tonnage  was  ten  per  cent. ;  while,  in  the 
first  twenty-one  years  after  the  passage  of  the  Reciprocity  Acts, 
the  increase  has  amounted  to  forty-five  per  cent.1  We  may  re- 
joice, therefore,  that,  while  the  whole  of  the  rest  of  society  has 
been  enjoying  the  benefits  of  cheapened  freight,  and  consequent 
extension  of  commerce,  the  shipping  interest  has  derived  its 
share  of  advantage  from  the  change. 

The  more  vital  question  of  reform  of  parliament  was  brought 
Pariiamen-  forward  again  this  year,  with  evidences  of  increasing 
tary  reform,  strength.  On  the  presentation  of  a  petition  from  the 
corporation  of  London  in  favor  of  parliamentary  reform,  brought 
to  the  bar  of  the  House  by  the  sheriffs  Lord  John  Russell 
declared  that  "  it  gave  him  infinite  satisfaction,2  to  see  the  grow- 
ing interest  which  all  cla-ses  were  taking  in  the  question  of  re- 
form." The  Norfolk  petit  on  —  the  extraordinary  one  carried 
by  Mr.  Cobbett  by  means  of  the  discontents  of  the  farmers  — 
excited  due  horror  and  ridicule  in  the  House  by  its  proposed 
attacks  on  the  Church  and  the  Funds;  but  the  great  "sensation" 
of  the  session  was  caused  by  the  presentation  of  the  Yorkshire 
petition  for  reform.8  It  measured  380  feet  in  length ;  and  it 
was  signed  by  two  thirds  of  the  freeholders  of  Yorkshire,  in- 
cluding a  large  majority  of  the  aristocracy  of  that  great  county. 
This  circumstance  shows  how  important  was  the  progress  that 
the  question  had  really  made.  The  Norfolk  one  might  have 
been  procured,  as  was  stated,  by  Cobbett's  shouting  to  a  crowd 
of  impoverished  farmers  and  hungry  laborers:  "  Here's  what 
will  save  your  beds  from  being  taken  from  under  you  ;  here  's 
what  will  fill  your  bellies ! "  and  by  his  calling  fundholders 
"  bo;tle--piders,"  and  the  clergy  "  black  slu<rs  "  ;  but  no  objections 
could  be  made  to  the  charac:er  of  the  Yorkshire  petition,  signed 
by  17,000  educated  and  propertied  men.  The  utmost  pains  had 
been  taken,  Lord  Milton  declared,  to  exclude  the  names  of  all 
who  were  not  bond-fide  freeholders  ;  and  he  believed  that  there 
were  not  50  names  out  of  the  17,000  to  which  any  exception  could 
be  reasonably  made.  No  immediate  conversion,  however,  ap- 
peared to  be  effected  within  the  House ;  nor  was  there  any 
gradual  progress  made  to  emulate  that  without.  The  annual 
debate  was  as  languid  as  usual ;  and  Lord  J.  Russell's  motion, 
proposing  "  serious  consideration,"  was  negatived  by  a  majority 
of  111  in  a  House  of  449.4 

1  Political  Dictionary,  ii.  p.  708.  2  Hansard,  viii.  p.  127. 

8  Ibid.  p.  1147.  *  Ibid.  p.  1287. 


CHAP.  VI.  J  CATHOLIC  CLAIMS.  381 

The  discussion  of  the  Catholic  claims  was  this  session  enlivened 
by  a  fearful  quarrel  in  the  House,  which  appeared  at  catholic 
the  time  injurious  to  the  cause,  but  which  was  perhaps  claims- 
not  so  in  reality,  while  it  discloses  to  us  now  the  difficulties  of 
Mr.  Canning's  position,  and  the  precariousness  of  political  peace 
to  him  at  home,  while  he  was,  in  his  function,  the  pacificator  of 
the  world.  He  had  said,  on  some  recent  occasion,  that  he  thought 
it  impossible,  in  the  existing  state  of  parliament  and  the  country, 
to  form  an  administration  which  should  agree  upon  this  and  other 
great  questions,  so  as  to  be  able  to  carry  on  the  business  of  the 
country.  There  was  nothing  in  this  declaration  which  would 
have  attracted  much  attention  from  any  one  else ;  for  all  the 
world  knew  that  the  existing  cabinet  were  cordially  united  on 
only  one  great  subject  —  opposition  to  parliamentary  reform. 
But  Mr.  Canning's  words  were  caught  up  as  meaning  that  he 
considered  the  cause  of  the  Catholics  hopeless.  The  main  error 
•ay  in  concluding  him  to  suppose  that  the  question  could  not  be 
carried  but  by  the  whole  of  an  administration  being  agreed  in  its 
favor ;  whereas  he  declared,  in  the  course  of  the  explanation : * 
'  I  did  not  mean  it ;  nor  do  I  think  such  an  administration  neces- 
sary." Under  this  supposition,  and  amidst  the  uneasiness  felt 
in  sympathy  with  the  expectant  Catholics,  who  had  hoped  much 
from  Mr.  Canning's  accession  to  office,  and  in  fear  lest  their 
patience  should  not  hold  out,  nothing  was  more  likely  than  that 
Mr.  Canning  should  be  at  once  condemned  as  having  deserted 
the  cause,  and  sacrificed  the  Catholics  to  his  own  ambition. 

On  the  night  of  the  17th  of  April,  the  Catholic  question  was 
debated,  on  occasion  of  a  petition  in  favor  of  their  claims  being 
sent  up  from  fifty-five  clergymen  in  the  diocese  of  Norwich. 
During  the  accidental  and  short  absence  of  Mr.  Canning,  Sir  F. 
Hurdett  made  a  fierce  attack  upon  him  for  his  supposed  defection  ; 
to  which  the  accused  replied  on  his  return.  Mr.  Tierney  fol- 
lowed in  a  speech  which  charged  Mr.  Canning  with  the  ruin  of 
the  hopes  of  the  Catholics,  and  with  all  the  possible  consequences 
of  that  ruin,  from  his  having  taken  office  without  making  the  con-  • 
cession  of  the  Catholic  claims  an  absolute  condition.2  Mr.  Grey 
Bennet  declared,  that  "  he  now  thought  the  affair  was  a  perfect 
trick  ;  or  what,  in  familiar  language,  was  called  a  humbug."  All 
this  was  somewhat  trying  to  the  nerves  of  a  man  singularly  sen- 
sitive, in  health  far  from  robust,  and  in  a  state  of  anxiety,  no 
less  for  a  cause  he  had  much  at  heart  than  for  his  own  political 
honor.  But  there  was  more  to  come.  Mr.  Brougham  followed 
with  one  of  those  violent  accusatory  s'peeches,  charged  with  insult, 
which  had  in  those  days  a  power  that  we  now  find  it  difficult  to 
understand,  —  .-o  endurable  as  censure  is  usually  rendered  by 
1  Hansard,  viii.  p.  1082.  2  Ibid.  p.  1087. 


382  HISTORY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [BOOK  H. 

extravagance  in  the  expression.  It  was  too  much  for  Mr.  Can- 
ning. He  sat  in  constrained  stillness,  while  hearing  of  his  "  mon- 
strous truckling,"  "  political  tergiversation,"  &c.,  his  cheek  flush- 
ing, his  nostril  quivering,  his  eyes  almost  glaring,  till  he  inter- 
rupted his  adversary  by  slowly  rising,  with  his  eye  fixed  upon 
him,  and  saying,  with  forced  calmness  :  "  I  rise  to  say  that  that 
is  false."  There  was  a  dead  silence  in  the  House  for  some  sec- 
onds ;  and  even  the  Speaker  seems  to  have  been  taken  by  sur- 
prise. It  was  he  who  broke  the  silence  by  saying,  in  a  low  tone, 
that  he  hoped  the  Right  Honorable  Secretary  would  retract  the 
expression  he  had  used,  as  one  not  permissible  by  the  laws  and 
customs  of  the  House.  Mr.  Canning  refused  to  retract  "  the 
sentiment ";  and  Mr.  Brougham  to  explain  away  his  imputation. 
The  matter  was  got  rid  of  by  an  unusual  stretch  of  the  usual 
explanation  in  such  cases  ;  that  the  charge  referred  to  the  polit- 
ical and  not  the  private  character  of  Mr.  Canning.  On  the  face 
of  it,  this  was  absurd  and  untrue ;  but  to  such  shifts  were  the 
opponents  of  Mr.  Canning  more  than  once  reduced  during  these 
few  latter  years  of  his  life,  when  he  stood  almost  alone  in  the  leg- 
islature and  the  cabinet,  while  supported  with  a  growing  enthu- 
siasm by  the  people.  This  quarrel,  so  far  transcending  the  ordi- 
nary squabbles  in  parliament,  yielded  some  good  results.  It  fixed 
universal  attention  on  Mr.  Canning's  view  of  the  present  state  of 
the  Catholic  question  ;  that  it  rested  securely  on  its  own  merits ; 
and  that  unity  of  opinion  in  the  existing  cabinet  about  it  was  not 
necessary  to  its  settlement. 

A  step  was  taken  this  session  with  regard  to  the  punishment 
Sentence  of  death,  which  was  of  importance,  in  as  far  as  it  tended 
of  death.  t0  separate  the  idea  of  death  punishment  from  crimes 
which  were  no  longer  capital.  The  practice  of  passing  sentence 
of  death  when  every  one  knew  it  would  not  be  executed,  had 
long  been  found  very  demoralizing;  and  the  practice  was  now 
superseded  by  one  not  more  defensible,  but  less  offensive  and  per- 
nicious. In  convictions  of  felony  short  of  murder,  discretion  was 
afforded  to  the  judge  to  reserve  the  case  avowedly  for  a  commu- 
tation of  punishment,  by  recording,  instead  of  pronouncing,  the 
sentence  of  death  ordained  by  the  law ;  such  record  having  the 
same  effect  "as  if  such  judgment  had  actually  been  pronounced 
in  open  court,  and  the  offender  had  been  reprieved  by  the  court." 1 
Such  an  arrangement  shows  how  little  the  great  principle  was 
understood,  that  certainty  of  punishment  is  of  more  consequence 
than  the  degree  of  it.  When  it  is  considered  that  most  criminals 
are  ignorant,  it  appears  important  above  everything  that  the  con- 
sequences of  crime  should  be  made  as  plain  and  intelligible,  and 
as  certain  as  possible.  The  levity  of  pronouncing  a  sentence 
i  Annual  Register,  1823,  p.  83. 


CHAP.  VI.]  NEGRO   SLAVERY.  883 

which  every  one  knew  to  be  a  mere  form  was  now  to  be  avoided ; 
but  it  was  by  what  appeared  to  the  criminals  whom  it  concerned 
a  falsehood  and  a  quibble.  "  Do  you  know,"  asked  a  prison- 
visitor  of  a  young  thief,  "  what  your  sentence  will  be  if  you  are 
found  guilty?"  "Yes:  death  recorded"  "  And  do  you  know 
what  that  means  ?  "  "  Yes  :  transportation."  It  will  be  a  marvel 
to  a  future  generation  that  we  are  yet  so  far  from  letting  our 
yea  be  yea,  and  our  nay  nay,  in  penal  legislation,  where  stern 
truth  and  plain  retribution  ought  to  be  our  lirst  care. 

A  remnant  of  barbarism  was  next  got  rid  of  by  abolishing  the 
old  custom  —  for  which  there  was  no  express  warrant 

,.  ,  «.  ..          .        •   i      /•  j?  7     j          i     f"O  de  se. 

or  law  —  ot  ignominious  bunal  ot  persons  jelo  ae  se. 
Up  to  this  time  it  had  been  the  practice  to  bury  such  suicides  in 
some  public  place ;  usually  at  the  intersection  of  four  roads,  a 
stake  being  driven  through  the  body.  One  consequence  of  this 
was,  that  a  verdict  of  felo  de  se  was  very  rarely  returned ;  the 
coroner's  jury  offering  a  verdict  of  insanity,  without  or  against 
evidence,  in  almost  all  cases  of  suicide.  Since  the  passing  of  Mr. 
Lennard's  bill,  in  this  session,  persons  guilty  of  felo  de  se  have 
been  interred  in  burial  grounds,  without  funeral  rites  on  the  one 
hand,  or  barbarous  usage  on  the  other ;  within  twenty-four  hours 
of  the  return  of  the  verdict,  and  between  the  hours  of  nine  and 
twelve  at  night. 

The  subject  of  the  marriage  law  came  up  again ;  the  act  of  the 
preceding  year  having  been  encumbered  by  so  many  Marriage 
troublesome  forms  as  to  impede  marriage,  instead  of  Act- 
fostering  it;  which  it  was  the  intention  of  the  bill  to  do.  At  the 
beginning  of  this  session  it  was  represented  that  marriages  had 
remarkably  decreased  since  the  passage  of  the  new  act,  and  that 
loud  complaints  were  made  by  the  poorer  classes  of  society,  to 
whom  it  was  most  desirable  to  make  the  forms  of  marriage  easy. 
The  obstructive  clauses  were  immediately  repealed  ; 2  and  a  com- 
mittee of  the  Lords  was  appointed  to  frame  a  permanent  bill. 
An  attempt  was  made  by  this  committee  to  restore  the  voidabil- 
ity  of  marriage  under  certain  circumstances ;  but  the  sense  of 
parliament  was  against  it ;  and  the  clause  which  would  have  ren- 
dered certain  marriages  of  minors  voidable  within  a  certain  period 
was  thrown  out  by  a  majority  of  six.8 

Nothing  is  more  memorable  in  the  history  of  this  year  than  the 
movement  in   the  House  and  in  the  West  Indies  on   NCgro 
the  subject  of  negro  slavery.    Those  who  had  achieved   sliiv«ry- 
the  abol'tion  of  the  slave-trade  had  .declared  —  and.  no  doubt,  in 
all  sincerity  at  the  time  —  that  their  aim  was  confined   to   this 
object;  but  when  men  have  entered  upon  a  work  of  principle, 

1  Annual  Register,  1823,  p.  88.  2  Hansard,  viii.  p.  236. 

«  Ibid.  ix.  p.  664. 


384  HISTORY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [BOOK  II. 

be  it  what  it  may,  they  had  better  decline  saying  how  far  they 
will  go.  They  can  no  more  say  beforehand  where  they  will  stop 
in  the  application  of  a  principle  than  in  the  development  of  a 
science.  New  light  is  not  calculable  ;  and  the  future  must  be 
left  to  reveal  itself.  Thus  did  the  truth  now  appear  to  the  abo- 
litionists. Their  work  was  only  begun  ;  and  they  must  not  rest 
till  they  saw  the  end.  At  present,  it  is  now  clear  they  did  not 
see  the  end ;  and  they  had  much  to  learn  about  the  means,  — 
much  that  we  know  only  through  their  labors  and  suffering-:,  and 
which  we  must  therefore  apply  to  their  case  with  reverence  and 
gratitude.  They  did  not  yet  see  fully,  that  while  there  is  slavery 
in  the  world,  there  will  be  a  slave-trade  ;  and  that  therefore  the 
opposition  should  be  made,  in  all  parts  of  the  world,  not  to  the 
trade,  but  to  the  institution,  through  effectual  denunciation  of  its 
principle.  They  did  not  then  know  that  slaves  can  never  be  pre- 
pared by  education  for  freedom ;  that  freedom  itself  is  the  only 
possible  education  for  a  free  man  They  diJ  not  know  that,  in 
regard  to  the  abolition  of  slavery,  "  gradualism  "  is  impossible. 
They  did  not  see  for  long  that  gradual  or  prospective  emancipa- 
tion is  indefensible  in  principle  ;  and  that,  if  it  were  not  so,  it 
would  be  impossible  in  practice.  Those  to  whom  they  have 
bequeathed  their  good  work  see  now  —  and  they  saw  it  before 
they  died  —  that  a  man  either  can  or  cannot  righteously  be  the 
property  of  man.  If  he  can,  then  slavery  is  justified,  and  there 
is  nothing  for  abolitionists  to  do.  If  not,  there  can  be  no  tam- 
pering with  the  wrong  ;  no  retention  of  stolen  goods  ;  no  satisfac- 
tion in  the  promise  of  restitution  at  a  distant  day.  Nor,  as  the 
stolen  goods  are  men,  is  it  possible  to  put  off  their  release.  If 
they  know  that  they  are  entitled  to  freedom,  on  the  ground  of 
natural  right,  at  any  future  time,  they  are  entitled  to  it  now.  If 
their  children  are  to  be  free  as  a  matter  of  right,  they  themselves 
have  the  right  to  be  free  now.  This  logic,  which  lies  deep  down 
in  the  negro's  heart,  and  is  ever  ready  upon  his  tongue,  cannot  be 
controverted  by  legislative  enactment,  even  though  all  the  high- 
est wits  of  the  world  went  to  make  the  parliament.  All  this 
appears  plain  enough  to  us  now  ;  but  there  is  nothing  in  our 
modern  history  more  interesting  than  the  evolution  of  the  proof. 
It  seems  like  going  back  to  the  early  tentative  stage  of  an  estab- 
lished moral  question,  to  read  the  debates  of  this  session  of  1823 
on  West  Indian  affairs. 

Mr.  Thomas  Fowell  Buxton  moved,  as  a  resolution,  on  the 
15th  of  May:1  "That  the  state  of  slavery  is  repugnant  to  the 
principles  of  the  British  constitution,  and  of  the  Christian  religion, 
and  that  it  ought  to  be  abolished  gradually  throughout  the  Brit- 
ish colonies,  with  as  much  expedition  as  may  be  found  consistent 
1  Hansard,  ix.  p.  274. 


CHAP.  VI.]  GOVERNMENT  RESOLUTIONS.  385 

with  a  due  regard  to  the  well-being  of  the  parties  concerned." 
The  enactments  which  he  hoped  would  follow  upon  the  adoption 
of  this  resolution  were  such  as  would  ordain  the  freedom  of  all 
children  born  after  a  certain  day,  and  mitigate  the  condition  of 
such  slaves  as  were  never  to  be  freed.  Mr.  Canning  seized  at 
once  upon  the  weak  point  —  the  "gradualism."  He  contended 
that  if  slavery  was  repugnant  to  the  principles  of  the  British  con- 
stitution and  of  the  gospel,  no  terms  ought  to  be  held  with  it.  It 
should  be  met  by  no  proposal  of  gradual  abolition,  but  by  a  de- 
mand for  its  immediate  extinction.  He  declared,  however,  that 
while  the  spirit  of  English  society  and  government  was  not  that 
which  could  fraternize  with  slavery,  it  was  certain  that  the  legis- 
lature —  the  maker  and  regulator  of  the  British  constitution  — 
had  sanctioned  slavery  in  the  colonies  during  preceding  centuries. 
As  for  the  rest  of  his  speech,  it  amounted  to  much  the  same  as 
those  of  everybody  out  of  the  band  of  associated  abolitionists. 
He  did  not  go  quite  so  far  as  Mr.  Baring,  who,  in  the  same 
breath,  declared  himself  as  sincere  an  abolitionist  as  any  man, 
and  deprecated  all  mention  of  the  subject  of  slavery  in  that 
House,1  rebellion  and  bloodshed  being  sure  to  follow.  He  did 
not,  like  Mr.  Baring  and  some  others,  regard  the  welfare  of 
West  India  property  as  the  only  important  consideration  in  the 
case.  He  did  remember,  as  too  many  did  not,  that  the  negroes 
were  a  party  in  the  case,  and  that  their  fate  was  an  element  in 
the  question.  But  he  was  not  prepared  to  assert  any  principle, 
or  to  contemplate  any  course  of  action,  which  should  bring  the 
abolition  of  the  institution  into  question  practically,  within  any 
assignable  time.  He  proposed  resolutions  declaratory  Government 
of  the  expediency  of  immediately  ameliorating  the  resolutions. 
condition  of  the  British  slave  population ;  of  the  hope  that  such 
amelioration  might  fit  the  slaves  for  freedom ;  and  of  the  desire 
of  the  House  that  these  objects  should  be  accomplished  at  the 
earliest  period  that  the  safety  of  all  parties  would  allow.2 

This  was  as  much  as  the  most  sanguine  of  the  abolitionists 
had  expected  to  obtain ;  and  it  was  more  than  their  adversaries 
were  able  to  bear.  After  a  long  debate,  Mr.  Canning's  resolu- 
tions were  carried  without  a  division ;  and  it  was  ordered  that 
they  should  be  laid  before  the  King  by  certain  members  of  the 
privy  council.8  Then  arose  a  prodigious  clamor  in  the  country,  on 
the  part  of  the  West  India  interest.  The  government  was  de- 
clared to  have  gone  over  to  ultra-abolitionism ;  and  West  India 
property  fell  in  the  market.  As  tor  the  colonies,  when  the  news  of 
the  debate  arrived,  there  was  much  anger  ;  but  there  was  at  first 
little  fear.  Mr.  Canning's  resolutions  were  looked  upon  as  mere 
declarations  —  mere  words  ;  and  abolition  '•  in  the  abstract "  is 

l  Hansard,  ix.  p.  256.  2  Ibid.  pp.  285,  286.  «  Ibid.  p.  360. 

VOL.  ii.  25 


386  HISTOEY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [BOOK  H. 

as  little  formidable  to  a  slaveholder  as  slavery  in  the  abstract  is 
disturbing  to  the  heart  of  an  abolitionist  like  Mr.  Baring,  whose 
action  in  the  matter  consisted  in  recommending  universal  silence 
on  the  subject.  It  soon  appeared,  however,  that  the  resolutions, 
and  the  House  that  had  passed  them,  really  meant  something. 
Government  A  circular,  dated  from  Downing  Street,  on  the  24th  of 
circular.  May,  reached  the  functionaries  of  the  different  islands  ; 
and  in  this  circular  they  read  the  doom  of  slavery.  It  did  not 
convey  anything  which  appears  to  us  very  tremendous.  It  drew 
the  attention  of  its  recipients  to  the  debate  in  the  House,1  and 
gave  a  decisive  intimation  that  there  must  be  an  end  of  the  flog- 
ging of  women,  and  of  the  use  of  the  whip  in  the  field.  It  was 
not  the  nature  of  these  particulars  which  affected  so  deeply  the 
West  Indian  mind.  It  was  the  fact  of  the  interference  at  all ; 
the  prospect  of  further  interference ;  the  dread  of  emancipation 
at  last ;  and  before  all  these  there  was  the  besetting  vision  — 
the  panic  which  comes  upon  the  slaveholder  with  every  breath 
from  over  the  seas  —  his  cold  horror  at  noon  —  his  nightmare  in 
the  dark  —  the  apprehension  of  insurrection,  if  any  one  of  a 
million  of  negroes  should  hear  that  the  British  government  was 
thinking  about  them.  To  other  people  it  appears  that  the  very 
time  when  the  negroes  are  least  disposed  to  rebel  is  that  when 
they  know  that  their  cause  is  in  good  hands ;  and  that  nothing  is 
so  likely  to  drive  them  to  insurrection  as  the  feeling  that  they 
have  none  to  help  them.  In  another  country,  and  at  a  later 
time,  this  has  proved  eminently  true.  Before  1832  there  were 
numerous  revolts  among  the  negroes  in  the  slave-states  of  North 
America ;  the  average  number  being  twelve  in  a  year.  Since 
Garrison  rose  up  to  be  the  Moses  to  this  multitude  of  bondmen, 
there  have  been  no  insurrections  at  all.  The  slaves  are  aware 
that  their  cause  is  in  better  hands  than  their  own  ;  and  they  wait, 
in  trust  and  hope. 

The  House  of  Assembly  in  Jamaica  was  passionate,  according 
Reception  in  to  its  wont ;  talked  of  proclaiming  the  independence 
Jamaica.  of  ^he  islan(jS)  if  Parliament  should  attempt  to  dictate 
to  them  ;  talked  of  addressing  the  King  to  remove  Lord  Bathurst 
(the  signer  of  the  circular)  from  His  Majesty's  councils ;  talked 
of  repealing  the  Registry  Act ;  but  did  none  of  these  things. 
What  they  did  was  to  appoint  a  committee  to  consider  what  steps 
should  be  taken  in  consequence  of  the  receipt  of  the  circular; 
and  they  finally  voted  that  they  would  take  their  own  way  of 
being  just  and  kind  to  their  slaves  ;  and  would  not  attend  to  any 
dictation  from  the  mother-country.  They  also  voted  an  address 
to  their  governor,2  in  which  they  declared  against  making  any 
alterations  in  their  slave-code. 

l  Annual  Register,  3823,  p.  130.  2  Ibid.  p.  133. 


CHAP.  VI.]          BARBADOES  AND  DEMERARA.  337 

In  Barbadoes  there  was  a  rising ;  but  it  was  of  the  slavehold- 
ing  party.  In  slaveholding  countries,  the  poorest  order  Reception  in 
of  freemen  are,  as  everybody  knows,  a  peculiarly  de-  Bar^068 ; 
praved  class,  for  reasons  obvious  enough.  Where  there  are  slaves 
to  do  the  work  of  a  society,  industry  is  opprobrious,  and  idleness 
is  honor.  Such  freemen  as  are  too  poor  to  have  slaves,  and  to 
avoid  work,  are  in  a  disgraced  position  ;  and  none  but  the  de- 
graded would  hold  that  position.  A  missionary  at  Barbadoes, 
named  Shrewsbury,  was  believed  to  have  written  home  to  those 
who  sent  him  that  the  lowest  class  of  white  men  in  that  colony 
were  ignorant  and  depraved.  It  is  probable  that  he  did  so  write  ; 
and  that  what  he  wrote  was  true.  A  multitude  assembled  round 
his  chapel l  while  he  was  in  the  pulpit,  and  silenced  him  with  the 
noise  of  cat-calls  and  other  clamor.  The  preacher  stood  in  his 
place  till  he  could  be  heard,  and  then  went  on  with  the  service. 
The  rioters  next  put  out  placards,  inviting  the  missionary's  ene- 
mies to  assemble  at  the  chapel  on  the  following  evening.  They 
did  so.  and  levelled  the  building  with  the  ground.  A  placard 
put  forth  by  the  governor,  Sir  Henry  Wanle,  offering  a  reward 
for  the  apprehension  of  any  of  the  persons  engaged,  was  answered 
by  one  issued  by  the  rioters,  threatening  vengeance  on  any  one 
who  should  give  information,  and  warning  all  missionaries  not  to 
set  foot  in  Barbadoes,  —  a  p!ace  which  did  indeed  seem  as  alien 
as  it  thus  declared  itself  from  the  religion  of  Christ.  Mr.  Shrews- 
bury was  obliged  to  fiy  for  his  life.  Such  proceedings  could  not 
end  at  the  point  they  had  reached ;  and  now  ensued  an  excited 
state  of  suspense  as  to  what  was  to  happen  next. 

And  so  it  was  in  another  colony,  Demerara,  whose  name  and 
fame  were  deeply  disgraced  this  year.     When  the  cir-   . 

r  J        .  a  J  .  in  Demerara. 

cular  reached  the  colony,  the  members  of  the  govern- 
ment and  other  gentlemen  talked  of  it  in  the  presence  of  their 
domestic  slaves,  without  making  any  express  communications  to 
the  negroes  on  the  subject  of  it,  and  even  endeavoring  to  keep  it 
secret  from  the  field-hands.  When  the  Court  of  Policy  passed 
regulations  in  accordance  with  the  instructions  of  the  circular, 
pains  were  still  taken  to  conceal  the  whole  affair  from  the  ne- 
groes.2 From  what  they  heard  from  the  house-slaves,  they 
naturally  supposed  that  orders  for  their  emancipation  had  arrived 
from  England,  and  that  they  were  to  be  defrauded  of  it.  In 
most  slave  regions,  this  would  have  led  to  a  massacre  of  the 
whites ;  and  it  no  doubt  would  here,  but  for  the  influence  of  a 
missionary  of  the  Independents,  to  whom  the  Episcopalian  clergy- 
man of  the  colony  ascribes  the  whole  merit  of  the  fact  that  not 
a  drop  of  the  blood  of  white  men  was  shed.  This  smith,  the 
missionary,  John  Smith,  had  been  in  the  colony  for  mwMonaiy. 
i  Annual  Register,  1823,  p.  133.  a  Edinburgh  Review,  xl  p.  243. 


388  HISTORY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [BOOK  H. 

seven  years,  during  which  time  he  had  trained  his  flock  to  habits  of 
order,  industry,  submission,  and  peace.  Under  his  care,  marriage 
became  almost  universal ;  and  not  one  marriage  in  fifty  was  vio- 
lated. There  was  an  extraordinary  deficiency  of  religious  min- 
isters in  this  colony ;  and  that  one  man  could  have  effected  what 
Mr.  Smith  did,  shows  what  may  be  done  by  the  calm  and  steady 
zeal  of  one  man,  whose  single  object  is  the  improvement  and 
happiness  of  his  neighbors.  Just  before  the  changes  caused  by 
the  circular,  the  Governor,  whose  object  was  to  "make  head 
against  the  sectaries,"  among  whom  he  included  all  the  religious 
bodies  in  the  colony  except  the  one  Episcopalian  flock,  —  even 
the  Dutch  and  Scotch  rhurches,  as  well  as  the  Methodist  and 
Independent  missionaries,  —  had  issued  a  prohibition  to  all  the 
negroes  to  attend  public  worship,  except  by  means  of  a  pass  from 
their  owner ;  these  owners  being  under  no  obligation  to  grant 
such  a  pass.  When  the  slaves  found  themselves  thus  hindered 
in  their  worship,  and  believed  themselves  debarred  from  the  lib- 
erty which  the  King  had  granted  them,  they  rose  upon  their 
masters.  They  shed  no  blood ;  but  they  imprisoned  the  whites, 
and  put  some  in  the  stocks.  The  first  who  rose  were  some  upon 
the  east  coast,1  who  had  suffered  most  by  the  deprivation  of 
liberty  to  attend  church,  and  they  were  joined  by  others  who 
thought  more  of  the  other  cause  of  complaint.  The  rising  took 
place  on  the  18th  of  August.  On  the  19th,  martial  law  was 
proclaimed.  On  the  20th,  the  insurrection  was  completely  over. 
While  no  white  was  sacrificed,  about  two  hundred  negroes  were 
killed  and  wounded  in  the  first  instance ;  forty-seven  were  exe- 
cuted ;  and  the  floggings  of  many  more  were  worse  than  death, — 
a  thousand  lashes  being  a  frequent  sentence.  So  much  for  the 
insurrection.  It  was  Mr.  Smith's  story,  in  connection  with  it, 
which  makes  this  particular  revolt  conspicuous  above  others  in 
the  history  of  our  time. 

The  Governor  kept  the  colony  under  martial  law  for  five 
months  after  this  insurrection  of  two  days ;  and  one  of  the  per- 
sons brought  to  trial  under  this  martial  law  was  the  missionary, 
Mr.  Smith.2  Now  was  the  time,  during  the  reign  of  martial 
law,  for  "  making  head  against  the  sectaries."  The  one  Episco- 
palian clergyman,  however,  gave  the  Governor  no  help  in  the 
valiant  work.  His  testimony  is  all  in  favor  of  the  '•  sectary  " 
under  persecution.  He  declared  his  conviction,  that  "  nothing  8 
but  those  religious  impressions  which,  under  Providence,  Mr. 
Smith  has  been  instrumental  in  fixing  —  nothing  but  those  prin- 
ciples of  the  gospel  of  peace  which  he  has  been  proclaiming  — 
could  have  prevented  a  dreadful  effusion  of  blood  here,  and 
saved  the  lives  of  those  very  persons  who  are  now,  I  shudder  to 
i  Annual  Register,  1823,  p.  135.  2  Hansard,  xi.  p.  968.  »  Ibid.  p.  407. 


CHAP.  VI.]  SMITH  THE  MISSIONARY.  389 

write  it,  seeking  his."  Under  this  reign  of  martial  law,  the 
pastor  was  kept  in  prison  for  two  months  before  trial ;  in 
apartments  —  the  one  under  the  roof,  exposed  to  burning  heat, 
and  the  other  on  the  ground,  fetid  from  the  stagnant  water 
visible  under  the  boards  of  the  floor.  He  was  an  invalid  before 
his  arrest ;  and  his  death  under  these  circumstances  is  not  to  be 
wondered  at.  The  mode  and  conduct  of  the  trial  abounded  in 
illegalities ;  and  his  conviction  took  place,  on  the  evidence  of 
three  negroes,  who  afterwards  confessed  that  they  had  been 
wrought  upon  to  allege  what  was  wholly  false.  The  charges 
were,1  of  having  incited  the  slaves  to  revolt;  of  having  con- 
cealed their  intention  to  rise ;  and  of  having  refused  —  which 
he  did  on  the  ground  of  ill-health  and  of  his  clerical  office  —  to 
serve  in  the  militia,  several  days  after  the  suppression  of  the 
rebellion.  But  the  real  purpose  of  the  trial  is  obvious,  through 
all  the  ill-supported  pretences  put  forward  in  the  military  court 
which  assembled  in  the  name  of  justice.  "  No  man,"  declared 
Mr.  Brougham  in  parliament,2  "  can  cast  his  eye  upon  this  trial 
without  perceiving  that  it  was  intended  to  bring  on  an  issue 
between  the  system  of  the  slave-law  and  the  instruction  of  the 
negroes."  This  was,  in  truth,  the  cause  in  question  ;  and  John 
Smith  was  its  martyr.  The  life  of  martyrs  in  a  cause  so  vital 
and  so  comprehensive  as  this  is  rarely  or  never  given  in  vain  ; 
and  few  have  been  laid  down  to  more  effectual  purpose  than  that 
of  the  Demerara  missionary. 

He  was  sentenced  to  death ;  but  his  persecutors  had  not  the 
courage  to  subject  themselves  to  the  consequences  of  executing  a 
judgment  so  obtained.  They  transmitted  the  sentence  to  Eng- 
land, for  the  decision  of  the  British  government.  The  British 
government  rescinded  the  sentence  of  the  court-martial,8  as  far 
as  related  to  the  penalty  of  death,  but  decreed  Mr.  Smith's  ban- 
ishment from  the  colony.  No  time  was  lost  in  transmitting  the 
information  to  Demerara  ;  but  before  it  arrived,  the  missionary 
was  in  his  grave.  His  medical  attendants  had  repeatedly  de- 
clared that  if  he  had  not  a  better  apartment,  he  must  sink  ;  but 
he  was  not  removed ;  nor  was  he  allowed  a  change  of  linen, 
nor  the  attendance  of  a  friend  to  relieve  the  cares  of  his  worn 
and  wearied  wife.  He  died  on  the  6th  of  February,  1824.  The 
funeral  was  ordered  to  take  place  at  two  o'clock  in  the  morning,4 
that  no  negro  tears  might  be  shed  over  the  pastor's  coffin.  The 
widow  and  her  friend,  Mrs.  Elliot,  intended  to  follow  the  coffin  ;' 
but  the  head-constable  declared  that  this  could  not  be  permitted. 
"  Is  it  possible,"  cried  Mrs.  Elliot,  "  that  General  Murray  can 

l  Hansard,  xi.  p.  984.  2  ibid.  p.  996. 

*  Annual  Register,  1823,  p.  1-37.  «  Hansard,  xi.  p.  1066. 

*  Edinburgh  Review,  xl.  p.  270- 


390  HISTORY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [BOOK  II. 

wish  to  prevent  a  poor  widow  from  following  her  husband  to  the 
grave?"  The  widow  exclaimed  that  General  Murray  should 
not  prevent  it ;  that  she  would  go,  happen  what  might.  The 
head-constable  went  to  His  Excellency  to  report  this,  and  brought 
back  orders  to  imprison  the  women,  if  they  attempted  to  follow 
the  coffin.  The  mourners,  therefore,  went  first.  They  left  the 
jail,  attended  by  a  negro  with  a  lantern,  and  arrived  at  the  grave 
before  the  coffin  was  brought,  —  the  light  weight  carried  by  two 
negroes  with  a  single  lantern,  and  attended  only  by  the  clergy- 
man, Mr.  Austin,  whose  testimony  in  favor  of  his  Christian 
brother  we  have  quoted  above.  Two  negro  members  of  Mr. 
Smith's  congregation,  a  carpenter  and  bricklayer,  wished  to  mark 
the  spot  of  their  pastor's  rest.  They  began  to  rail  in  and  cover 
over  the  grave  ;  but  by  official  orders  the  brickwork  was  broken 
up,  the  rail*  torn  down,  and  the  spot  left  desolate. 

Mr.  Smith  died  on  the  6th  of  February.  On  the  24th  of  the 
same  month,  a  public  meeting  of  Demerara  slave-owners  re- 
solved1 forthwith  to  petition  the  Court  of  Policy  "  to  expel  all 
missionaries  from  the  colony,  and  to  pass  a  law  prohibiting  their 
admission  for  the  future."  The  government  paper  of  the  same 
month  declares:  "It  is  most  unfortunate  for  the  cause  of  the 
planters  that  they  did  not  speak  out  in  time.  They  did  not  say, 
as  they  ought  (o  have  said,  to  the  h'rst  advocates  of  missions  and 
education  :  We  shall  not  tolerate  your  plans  till  3-011  prove  to  us 
that  they  are  safe  and  necessary ;  we  shall  not  suffer  you  to  en- 
lighten our  slaves,  who  are  by  law  our  property,  till  you  can 
demonstrate  that  when  they  are  made  religious  and  knowing, 
they  will  still  continue  to  be  our  slaves."  Again  :  "  To  address 
a  promiscuous  audience  of  black  or  colored  people,  bond  and 
free,  by  the  endearing  appellation  of  '  My  brethren  and  sisters,' 
is  what  can  nowhere  be  heard  except  in  Providence  Chapel." 
These  are  evidences,  quite  as  strong  as  any  connected  with  the 
trial,  that  the  Christian  religion  was  wholly  inappropriate  to 
Demerara  society. .  These  are  evidences,  as  strong  as  any 
afforded  by  the  trial,  that  "  it  was  intended  to  bring  on  an  issue 
between  the  system  of  the  slave-law  and  the  instruction  of  the 
negroes  " ;  and  to  one  who  clearly  saw  this,  the  cause  would 
appear  one  worth  dying  for.  But  to  martyrs  themselves,  the 
scope  of  their  case  is  seldom  clear;  and  in  this  instance,  the 
probability  of  such  an  animating  comprehension  was  less  than 
ordinary.  This  John  Smith,  perhaps,  prepared  himself,  during 
his  missionary  training,  for  violence  from  half-naked  savages,  — 
for  mockery  in  an  unknown  tongue,  —  for  the  fire,  the  flint-knife, 
the  tomahawk,  and  every  possible  destitution  of  comfort  and  of 
intercourse ;  but  he  could  hardly  have  anticipated  persecution 
l  Hansard,  xi.  p.  997. 


CHAP.  VI.]  CLOSE  OF  THE   SESSION.  391 

and  heart-break  from  Christian  gentlemen,  and  officials  under  the 
British  government.  If  he  saw  clearly  the  scope  of  his  own 
case,  —  saw  that  he  was  not  the  less  a  martyr  for  his  judges 
being  Biitish  officers,  the  curses  on  him  uttered  by  Christian 
tongues,  and  his  bolt-  turned  by  Christian  hands,  he  might  sus- 
tain his  spirit  amidst  the  reeking  vapors  of  his  dungeon,  and  the 
damps  of  death.  In  court,  he  had  been  silenced ;  but  his  voice 
was  .-oon  to  be  heard  in  the  British  Parliament,  and  by  the  fire- 
sides in  Orkney  and  Scilly,  and  under  the  cane-roofs  in  India, 
and  among  the  pine  barrens  of  Canada.  His  private  journal 
had  been  taken  from  his  locked  desk,  to  be  pored  over  by  malig- 
nant eyes ;  but  he  need  not,  therefore,  wish  that  he  had  never 
written  it.  Once  brought  to  light,  the  very  light  seemed  to 
catch  it  up,  and  to  present  it,  sun-printed,  before  all  eyes  that 
were  vigilant  for  human  liberties.  He  might  have  appeared  to 
himseif  sunk  in  desolation,  and  squalor,  and  ignominious  misfor- 
tune, when  arrested,  tried,  and  sentenced  as  a  criminal  under  the 
semblance  of  the  forms  of  British  law  and  Christian  authority  ; 
and  he  might  not  have  felt  that  exhilaration  of  martyrdom  which 
would  have  thrilled  through  him  in  a  scene  outwardly  more  sav- 
age. But  not  the  less  was  he  a  martyr ;  and  the  cause  was  not 
the  less  express  or  worthy,  because  the  heathens  with  whom  he 
had  to  do  bore  the  Christian  name.  The  true  issue  will  never 
be  forgotten,  —  "  the  issue  between  the  system  of  the  slave-law 
and  the  instruction  of  the  negroes."  It  was  understood  in  Eng- 
land as  by  a  universal  intuition:  by  the  whole  nation,  —  from 
the  King,  in  his  sumptuous  seclusion,  going  over  the  matter  with 
the  Premier,  to  the  little  child  on  its  mother's  knee,  hearing  its 
father  tell,  on  the  cottage-bench,  of  the  missionary's  negro  flock, 
his  unfair  trial,  and  his  dreary  lantern-burial.  It  needed  only  to 
be  brought  fairly  before  British  minds,  and  near  to  British  hearts, 
that  slaves  were  anywhere  denied  to  be  their  brethren  and  sis- 
ters, —  were  anywhere  deliberately  denied  their  birthright  of 
knowledge  and  religious  fellowship,  —  to  secure  the  overthrow  of 
slavery. 

From  this  time  the  doom  of  slavery  was  fixed,  and  known  to 
be  so;  and  the  impotent  struggles  of  resistance  in  the  colonies 
served  no  other  purpose  so  effectually  as  that  of  reminding  men 
of  Smith  the  missionary,  and  stimulating  them  to  new  efforts  in 
the  cause  for  which  he  died. 

The  session  of  parliament  closed    on  the    19th  of  July,  the 
royal  speech  being  delivered  by  commission,  owing  to   close  of 
the  indisposition  of  the  King.     The  noticeable  point   "e*8*011- 
of  the  speech  is  its  tone  of  congratulation  on  the  abatement  of 
agricuhural    distress,  and  on  the  high  prosperity  of  commerce 
and  manufactures, 


392  HISTORY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [BOOK  IL 


CHAPTER  VII. 

THE  year  1824  opened  amidst  such  prosperity,  that,  instead 
p  .  of  grumbling,  there  was  nothing  he;ird  of  among 

capitalists  of  every  order  but  anticipations  of  vast 
increase  of  wealth.  The  demand  for  all  kinds  of  agricultural 
produce  was  steadily  rising ;  and  wheat  was  at  62*.  on  the 
average  for  the  year.  The  price  of  bread  was  not  complained 
of;  for  almost  every  class  of  laborers  was  well  employed.  The 
cotton  manufacture  increased  largely ;  the  iron-masters  were  in 
high  spirits  ;  the  hardware  trade  was  brisk  ;  and  the  woollen 
manufacturers  made  no  complaint.  In  the  exhilaration  of  the 
time,  men  were  disposed  to  make  haste  to  be  rich  ;  and  the 
immense  spread  of  joint-stock  companies  became  a  joke  of  the 
time,  —  a  heavy  joke  enough  in  its  issue,  but  very  merry  at  the 
moment.  While  this  exhilaration  and  satisfaction  were  apparent 
on  the  surface  of  society,  and  there  was  even  in  its  depths  a 
sense  of  comfort  and  hope  not  often  enjoyed  there,  some  things 
were  going  forward  in  by-places,  which  make  us  wonder  now 
how  men  could  have  been  satisfied  with  a  state  of  things  so 
obviously  needing  improvement  in  its  principle  and  in  many  of 
its  workings. 

There  were  strange  doings  by  night  in  the  creeks  and  hollow- 
ways  and  caves  of  the  southern  coast ;  and  a  remarkable  order 
of  passengers  by  day  in  the  packets  from  France.  Every  now 
and  then  a  fisherman's  great  boots  were  found  to  be  stuffed  with 
French  lace,  gloves,  or  jewellery ;  or  a  lady's  petticoats  to  be 
quilted  all  through  with  silk  stockings  and  lace.  Here  and 
there,  a  nice-looking  loaf  of  bread  was  found  to  have  a  curious 
kernel  of  lace  and  gloves  ;  and  a  roll  of  sail-cloth  turned  out  to 
be  a  package  of  gay  lute-string.  In  the  dead  of  the  night,  a 
large  body  of  men  would  work  for  hours  noiselessly  in  the  soft 
sands,  rolling  tubs  of  spirits,  and  carrying  bales  of  goods  in  the 
shadows  of  the  rocks,  and  thiMiigh  tunnels,  and  up  chasms,  under 
the  very  feet  of  the  preventive  patrol,  and  within  sound  of  the 
talk  of  the  sentries.  While  this  was  going  forward  on  the  Eng- 
lish coast,  the  smugglers  on  the  opposite  shore  were  engaged, 
with  much  more  labor,  risk,  and  expense,  in  introducing  English 


CHAP.  VII.]  SMUGGLING.  393 

woollens,  by  a  vast  system  of  fraud  and  lying,  into  the  towns, 
past  a  series  of  custom-houses.  In  both  countries  there  was  an 
utter  dissoluteness  of  morals  connected  with  these  transactions. 
Cheating  and  lying  were  essential  to  the  whole  system  ;  drunk- 
enness accompanied  it;  contempt  for  all  law  grew  up  under  it; 
honest  industry  perished  beneath  it;  and  it  was  crowned  with 
murder.  Little  children  who  lived  near  a  smuggling  haunt 
learned  early  to  be  sly,  and  to  say  anything  that  was  convenient. 
Their  mothers  stole  down  to  the  sands  at  night  to  bring  up  light 
goods  which  they  might  hide  in  the  rafters  of  the  cottage,  and 
spread  temptingly  before  any  foolish  ladies  within  their  reach. 
Or,  if  they  did  not  themselves  meddle,  they  reproached  their 
husbands  for  working  at  the  plough  or  the  anvil  when  certain 
neighbors  could  make  a  pocketful  of  money  in  a  night.  As  for 
the  men,  they  were  tapping  a  cask  of  spirits  when  their  work 
was  done  at  dawn,  and  passing  the  daylight  hours  in  a  drunken 
sleep,  in  some  hidden  place,  instead  of  being  at  honest  labor  in 
the  h'eld  or  in  the  shop.  Then,  if  the  expected  boat  did  not 
come  in,  they  would  not  me<jt  for  nothing,  but  go  poaching  in  the 
nearest  preserves.  When  detected,  which  was  sure  to  happen 
pretty  often,  a  conflict  ensued;  and  the  newspapers  of  the  time 
abound  in  notices  of  preventive  men  and  sinugg  ers  shot. 

As  for  the  loss  and  financial  injury  to  the  nations  from  this 
state  of  things,  it  was  estimated  at  a  later  period  (1831),  when 
smuggling  had  much  declined,  that  the  amount  of  duties  evaded 
by  the  smuggling  of  French  goods  alone,  and  exclusive  of  the 
great  article  of  tobacco,  exceeded  800,000/.  a  year ; 1  while  the 
value  of  British  goods  smuggled  into  France  by  the  Belgian  fron- 
tier alone  exceeded  2,000,0u0i  All  this  demoralizing  trade  was 
taken  out  of  the  very  substance  of  the  honest  trade  which  would 
have  been  carried  on  for  the  general  good,  if  our  commercial  sys- 
tem had  been  a  wise  one.  And  there  was,  besides,  an  enormous 
annual  outlay  for  the  sake  of  obviating  this  undermining  of  the 
revenue.  The  preventive  service  and  the  coast  blockade  were  the 
expensive  apparatus  employed  for  this  end  ;  and  fifty-two  rev- 
enue cruisers  were  always  hovering  about  the  coasts.  The  coast 
blockade  consisted  of  1->00  officers  and  seamen  of  the  navy  ;  and 
there  was  the  coast-guard  besides,  with  their  cottages  and  estab- 
lishments. In  1822  and  1823  the  number  of  captures  was  52 
vessels  and  385  boats  engaged  in  smuggling.  The  cost  at  that 
time  amounted  to  between  four  and  five  hundred  thousand  pounds 
a  year.  When  to  this  is  added  the  expense  of  the  dwellings  of 
the  coa-t-guard,  and  all  other  items,  the  total  annual  cost  of  pro- 
tecting the  revenue  niny  be  estimated  at  not  much  below  a  mill- 
ion. This  cost  is  independent  of  the  loss  to  the  revenue  from 
1  Political  Dictionary,  art,  Smuggling- 


394  HISTORY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [BOOK  H. 

the  evasion  of  the  legal  duties,  and  of  the  injury  to  lawful  com- 
merce, by  the  intervention  of  the  smuggler.  Amidst  the  general 
prosperity  there  was  something  wrong  here. 

Elsewhere,  there  was  trouble  of  another  kind.  Exactly  at  the 
time  when  work  was  pressing  most  to  be  done,  it  was  made  im- 
possible to  get  it  done  by  the  refusal  of  the  workmen.  The 
higher  the  prosperity,  the  higher  ran  the  discontents  between 
masters  and  men,  and  among  the  different  ranks  of  workmen 
themselves.  Tne  strikes  at  this  time  were  of  a  particularly  for- 
midable character  ;  and  so  were  the  mutual  violences  of  the  work- 
people. At  Macclesfield,  there  was  a  serious  conflict  between 
the  soldiers  and  four  hundred  rioters,  part  of  a  body  of  six  thou- 
sand who  had  risen  against  their  employers  on  a  question  of  time 
and  wages.  Near  Glasgow,  a  mob  of  weavers  assaulted  and  per- 
secuted a  family  of  their  own  craft  for  working  for  an  obnoxious 
mast  r  ;  and  in  many  places  there  were  alarms  and  disorders, — 
hanging  people  in  eftigy,  throwing  vitriol,  and  even,  it  is  believed, 
the  commission  of  murder ;  while  the  bulk  of  the  workmen  in 
every  craft  were  under  an  insufferable  tyranny  from  the  domina- 
tion of  their  leaders,  and  the  employers  were  harassed  with  vain 
attempts  to  execute  orders  which  would  have  enriched  them  and 
their  men  togeiher.  Here  a  public  edifice  was  left  unfinished 
till  the  best  weather  for  building  was  past ;  there,  in  the  dyer's 
office,  where  the  perfection  of  the  black  dye  depended  on  a  speedy 
use  of  a  favorable  state  of  the  atmosphere,  the  goods  were  left  in 
the  vats  exposed  to  the  air  for  days,  till  they  were  spoiled.  Else- 
where, the  weaver  who  was  willing  to  work  for  a  twelfth  hour 
in  a  liusy  lime,  for  increased  wages,  was  met  in  the  dark,  and 
told  that  he  would  be  murdered  if  he  worked  for  more  than  eleven 
hours  ;  and  another  found  his  clothes  burned  to  rags  wi;h  vitriol, 
for  not  having  refused  to  work  for  an  unpopular  master ;  and 
some  disappeared  altogether — departed  or  murdered.  There 
was  something  wrong  here  —  that  such  troubles  should  exist 
amidst  the  gen  -ral  prosperity. 

The  new  men  ushered  in  by  a  new  time  took  these  mischiefs 
in  hand.  To  consider  the  last-mentioned  evils  first  —  great 
changes  were  made  this  year  in  the  laws  respecting  wages. 

The  Spitalfields  journeymen  were  now  well  employed,  and 
Repeal  of  *ney  were  as  careless  about  the  passage  of  the  bill  pro- 
Spitaifieids  posed  the  preceding  year  as  they  had  then  been  alarmed. 
It  was  not  that  they  had  grown  wiser ;  for  they  did 
not  yet  perceive  that  a  fixed  legal  rate  of  wages  must  have  the 
effect  of  sto  >i.>ing  the  manufacture  in  unfavorable  seasons,  and  of 
precluding  their  employers  from  competing  with  those  of  Maccles- 
lield  and  Paisley,  and  other  places  where  labor  and  its  rewards 
Were  left  free.  They  did  not  perceive  how  much  of  their  busi- 


CHAP.  VII.]  COMBINATION  LAWS.  395 

ness  had  been  driven  out  of  Middlesex  by  their  Middlesex  priv- 
ileges ;  but  the  eleven  thousand  who  had  earnestly  petitioned 
against  change  the  year  before,  now  let  change  take  its  course. 
They  were  fully  employed  during  this  season  of  prosperity,  and 
supposed  it  would  be  always  so  ;  so  they  said  nothing  against  the 
repeal  of  the  Spitalh'elds  Act,  which  took  place  very  quietly  this 
session.  Lord  Lauderdale  introduced  the  matter  in  the  Upper 
House,  where  the  change  met  with  some  opposition.  In  the 
Lower,  no  discussion  took  place  at  all.  But  for  this  proceeding, 
there  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  silk  manufacture  in  Spitalfields 
would  have  been  extinct  before  this  time. 

A  committee  of  the  House,  with  Mr.  Hume  for  its  chairman, 
reported  upon  the  laws  relating  to  artisans  and  machinery. 
Three  points  h;id  been  especially  considered  by  this  committee  : 
the  state  of  the  combination  laws  ;  the  question  of  permitting  or 
prohibiting  the  emigration  of  artisans  ;  and  that  of  permitting  or 
prohibiting  the  exportation  of  machinery.  Of  these  three  points, 
the  last  was  left  to  stand  over  for  future  consideration.  The 
report  declared,  witli  regard  to  the  second  point,  that  no  laws 
could  effectually  prevent  the  emigration  of  artisans  ; 
that  it  was  inexpedient  to  irritate  the  feelings  of  a 
valuable  order  of  men  by  denying  them  the  liberty  of 
travelling l  which  everybody  else  enjoyed,  and  interfering  to  pre- 
vent their  carrying  their  labor  to  the  best  market;  and  that 
there  was  reason  to  believe  that  many  valuable  artisans  who 
wished  to  return  home  remained  abroad  from  a  supposition  that 
they  were  liable  to  punishment  on  their  return.  The  total  repeal 
of  all  laws  affecting  the  freedom  of  travelling  of  artisans  was 
therefore  recommended.  The  recommendation  was  acted  upon, 
and  no  opposition  was  made  to  this  emancipation. 

The  third  point  was  a  very  serious  one :  the  consideration  of 
the  combination  laws.  The  committee  reported  their  combination 
conclusions,* — that  these  laws  were  instruments  of  laws- 
oppression  in  the  hands  of  employers,  who  had  the  means  of  put- 
ting them  in  force  against  their  men.  while  no  case  was  known 
to  the  committee  of  an  employer  being  punished  under  them, 
even  in  the  most  flagrant  cases  of  conspiracy  against  the  interests 
of  artisans.  The  report  recommended  that  employers  and  their 
men  should  be  left  free,  by  a  repeal  of  these  laws,  to  manage 
their  interests  in  their  own  way;  and  that  that  portion  of  the 
common  law  should  be  altered  which  treated  as  a  conspiracy  a 
peaceable  meeting  of  masters  and  men.  In  the  next  session, 
Mr.  Huskisson  explained,3  that  some  mistakes  had  been  made  in 
the  proceedings  which  followed  upon  this  report ;  that  the  bill 
founded  upon  the  report  had  been  framed  and  passed  too  hastily 
1  Hansard,  xi.  p.  813.  2  Ibid.  p.  812.  »  Huskisson's  Speeches,  ii.  p.  3G4. 


396  HISTORY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [BOOK  II. 

and  without  due  legal  supervision.  The  bill  repealed  thirty  or 
forty  acts  of  parliament,  and  took  away  all  the  security  given  by 
the  common  law  against  the  oppression  and  violence  which  might 
ensue  upon  combinations  to  regulate  labor  and  wages.  The  re- 
peal was,  indeed,  too  sweeping  and  unguarded.  The  act  was  no 
sooner  passed  than  monstrous  combinations  arose,  under  which 
industry  was  paralyzed,  and  dangerous  discontents  threatened  the 
peace  of  society.  From  August  to  January,  scarcely  a  stroke  of 
work  was  done  in  Glasgow  and  the  neighborhood.  The  turbu- 
lent compelled  the  timid  to  strike  when  they  would  fain  have 
gone  on  to  work  in  peace  ;  and  an  organization  was  formed  under 
which  masters  and  men  suffered  for  long  years  afterwards,  —  the 
masters  most  in  prosperous  times,  and  the  men  in  adverse  sea- 
sons, —  but  both  parties  always  from  mutual  jealousy  and  a  con- 
stant sense  of  insecurity.  It  is  true  that  experience  must  teach 
in  time,  and  that  men  must  learn  better  from  experience  than 
from  law,  the  injury  on  all  hands  when  emplo\  ers  coerce  the  labor 
of  the  employed,  and  when  artisans  refuse  to  labor  for  capitalists, 
and  stand  idly  aloof  from  the  means  of  bread.  It  is  true  that 
experience  appears  to  have  taught  the  parties  concerned  some- 
thing of  this  ;  for  strikes  are  not  now  anything  like  what  they 
were  at  the  period  of  which  we  write.  But  at  that  time  some- 
thing must  be  done  to  control  the  existing  license.  Early  in  the 
session  of  1825,  Mr.  Huskisson  moved  for  a  committee  to  recon- 
sider the  action  of  parliament  on  the  subject ;  and  the  result  was 
that  the  act  of  1824  was  repealed,  and  another  substituted  for  it, 
which  is  the  existing  law.  By  this  act,  combinations  of  masters 
and  workmen  to  settle  terms  about  wages  and  hours  of  labor  are 
made  legal ;  but  combinations  for  controlling  employers  by  moral 
violence  were  again  put  under  the  operation  of  the  common  law. 
By  this  as  much  was  done  for  the  freedom  and  security  of  both 
parties  as  can  be  done  by  legislation,  which,  in  this  matter,  as 
in  all  others,  is  an  inferior  safeguard  to  that  of  personal  intelli- 
gence. 

Important  as  was  this  era  to  the  working-classes  on  account 
of  its   legislation   on  wages,  it  was   yet  more  so  as 

Free  trade.  f  ,. 

introducing  freedom  of  trade,  prornotive  or  manufac- 
ture. The  cotton  manufacture  had  been  allowed  a  fair  chance 
from  the  beginning  by  freedom  from  those  restrictions  with 
which  the  silk  and  woollen  trades  had  been  fettered.  In  the 
history  of  the  nation  the  year  1824  will  ever  be  memorable,  for 
the  sake  of  the  benefits  secured  to  the  manufacturing  classes  by 
the  new  man  of  the  new  time. 

These  manufacturing  classes  were  at  this  period  holding  a 
higher  position  in  the  nation  than  they  had  ever  done  before. 
The  increase  of  numbers  was  not  equally  divided  between  tUo 


CHAP.  VII.]  SILK  DUTIES.  397 

agricultural  population  and  tliat  engaged  in  manufactures  and 
commerce.1  The  increase  of  agricultural  families  was  only  two 
and  a  half  per  cent,  of  the  whole,  in  the  twenty  years  from  1811 
to  1831,  while  that  of  manufacturing  and  trading  families  was 
nearly  thirty-one  and  a  half  per  cent.  The  disproportion  had 
now  begun  which  was  to  go  on  increasing  up  to  the  present  day, 
and  which  must,  as  most  persons  agree,  continue  to  increase  till 
agriculture  has  so  far  improved,  in  science  and  art,  as  to  create 
a  demand  for  labor  like  that  arising  from  freedom  and  consequent 
improvement  in  manufactures.  In  our  own  time,  we  seldom  see 
the  children  of  artisan  families  destined  to  agricultural  industry ; 
while  we  as  seldom  see  all  the  children  of  parents  engaged  in 
agriculture  employed  upon  the  soil.  The  farmer  places  out  some 
of  his  sons  in  business,  while  his  daughters  marry  tradesmen ; 
and  the  field-laborer  is  glad  to  get  his  children  out  to  service 
iu  the  towns,  or  to  employment  in  factories.  The  agricultural 
portion  of  society  has,  for  many  years,  been  diminishing,  while 
the  other  departments  of  occupation  have  been  increasing  in  a 
constantly  augmenting  proportion.  The  freedom  of  the  cotton 
trade,  in  contrast  with  the  restrictions  on  agriculture  which  went 
under  the  name  of  protection,  were,  no  doubt,  a  chief  cause  of 
the  shifting  of  the  balance  of  preponderance  prior  to  this  time ; 
and  now  the  silk  and  woollen  manufactures  were  to  be  allowed 
to  prosper,  after  the  same  method  as  the  cotton. 

In  the  year  1 685,  the  intolerant  King  of  France,  Louis  XIV., 
drove  many  thousands  of  his  best  subjects  out  of  his 
kingdom,  by  persecution  for  their  religious  faith.  It  is 
believed  that  not  less  than  50,000  came  to  England  ;  and  of  these 
many  were  skilled  in  silk-weaving.  These  Frenchmen  were  the 
original  Spitalfields  weavers.  When  they  arrived,  there  was  a 
free  trade  in  silks  with  all  countries  where  they  were  produced ; 
but  the  immigrants  obtained  laws  in  their  own  favor,  before  the 
century  was  out,  which  shut  out  all  foreign  silks  whatever.  In 
1719,  the  brothers  Lombe  set  up  a  silk-mill,  —  having  learned, 
at  great  risk  and  expense,  how  the  Italian  silk-mills  were  con- 
structed. The  money  they  expended  was  under  the  security  of 
the  heavy  duties  which  were  laid  upon  the  thrown  silk  imported 
from  Italy;  and  when  they  had  been  repaid  and  rewarded  by 
parliament,  the  expense  of  the  establishment  of  silk-mills  in 
England  was  the  reason  always  brought  forward  for  continuing 
the  heavy  duties  on  foreign  thrown  silk,  when  any  one  proposed 
to  get  it  cheaper  from  Italy.  This  was  very  hurtful  to  the 
manufacture  in  England,  both  as  regarded  its  extension  and  the 
improvement  of  its  quality.  It  advanced  very  slowly  —  much 
more  slowly  than  was  natural  —  till  the  introduction  of  cotton 
i  Porter's  Progress,  &c.,  §  iii.  c.  9. 


398  HISTORY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [BOOK  U 

fabrics  into  general  wear,  towards  the  end  of  the  century,  threw 
it  back  for  some  years.  In  1793,  four  thousand  looms  stood 
idle,1  which  had  given  employment  to  ten  thousand  persons 
seven  years  befote.  When  the  manufacture  revived,  it  was  in 
consequence  of  the  vast  increase  in  the  production  of  silk  in 
India,  where  the  Company  had  introduced  the  Italian  method  of 
preparing  the  material.  The  price  per  pound  was  not  much 
lower  than  that  of  Italian  silk,  exclusive  of  duty;  but  in  Itnly 
only  one  crop  of  raw  silk  was  produced  in  a  year,  while  in  India 
there  were  two  or  three.  This  abundance  tended  to  remove 
those  restrictions  on  manufacture  which  arise  from  scarcity  of 
the  raw  material.  Before  1770,  only  100,000  pounds  of  silk 
were  imported,  whereas  in  1823  the  quantity  amounted  to 
1,200,000  pounds  of  a  much  better  quality.  At  that  time,  the 
value  of  the  silk  manufacture  was  estimated  at  ten  millions  ;  and 
it  was  believed  to  support  about  400,0l»0  persons.2  Yet  our 
silks  were  higher  priced  than  those  of  France,  and  generally 
considered  not  so  good.  It  was  the  fashion  among  the  ladies  to 
prefer  French  silks ;  and  so  great  was  the  encouragement  given 
to  smuggling  through  this  fancy,  that  the  English  manufacturers 
found  it  answer  well  to  send  their  fabrics  to  sea,  to  have  them 
landed  as  smuggled  goods  ;  and  the  ladies  were  perfectly  happy, 
as  long  as  they  knew  nothing  of  the  device,  and  could  admire 
and  show  their  dresses  as  Lyon  manufacture  —  so  far  superior 
to  anything  that  could  be  produced  at  home!  If  the  French 
silks  were  then  really  superior  to  the  English,  while  cheaper,  the 
time  was  coming  when  they  would  be  neither  better  nor  cheaper  ; 
for  the  day  was  at  hand  when  that  freedom  of  competition  was 
to  be  allowed,  which  is  the  true  stimulus  to  improvement,  and 
when  the  reduction  of  duties  on  various  articles  used  in  the  silk 
manufacture  would  permit  a  lowering  of  the  price  of  the  fabric. 
As  soon  as  Mr.  Robinson  and  Mr.  Huskisson  came  into  office, 
the  principal  silk  manufacturers  in  and  around  London  presented 
a  petition  in  favor  of  the  removal  of  restrictions  on  the  manu- 
facture, which  enabled  Mr.  Huskisson  to  plead  8  that  '•  the  trade 
had  been  the  first  to  suggest  the  removal  of  these  restrictions  ; 
and  he  was  confident  they  would  be  nearly  the  first  to  rejoice  at 
their  removal."  The  petitioners  declare  *  that  "'  this  important 
manufacture,  though  recently  considerably  extended,  is  still  de- 
pressed below  its  natural  level  by  laws  which  prevent  it  from 
a.taining  that  degree  of  prosperity  which  under  more  favorable 
circumstances  it  would  acquire.  Taking  into  account  the  unlim- 
ited supply  of  silk  with  which  we  might  be  furnished  from  our 

1  Edinburgh  Review,  xliii.  p.  79.  8  Huskisson's  Speeches,  ii.  p.  233. 

*  becond  Report  of  Lords'  Commit-        *  Hansard,  x.  p.  803. 
tee,  p.  39. 


CHAP.  VII.]        REDUCTION  OF  SILK  DUTIES.  399 

East  India  possessions,  our  indefinite  command  of  capital,  and 
the  unrivalled  skill  and  industry  of  our  artisans,  your  petitioners 
hesitate  not  to  express  their  conviction  that,  by  judicious  ar- 
rangements, our  silk  manufacture  might  be  placed  in  a  condition 
ultimately  to  triumph  over  all  foreign  competition,  and  that  silk, 
like  cotton,  may  be  made  one  of  the  staple  commodities  of  the 
country."  While  some  few  of  the  multitude  engaged  in  the  silk 
manufacture  were  wise  enough  to  wish  for  freedom  in  both  di- 
rections, the  greater  number  were  urgent  for  the  repeal  of 
duties  on  the  materials  employed,  but  clamorous  against  the 
importation  of  manufactured  silks,  and  against  any  great  reduction 
of  the  duties  on  the  organzine,  or  prepared  silk.  It  was  no  easy 
matter  for  the  minister  to  determine  his  course  among  the  various 
parties.  The  proprietors  of  silk-mills  remonstrated  against  the 
admission  of  foreign  organzine;  and  Mr.  Buxton  presented  "a 
petition  from  23,000  journeymen  silk-weavers  of  the  metropolis, 
praying  that  the  prohibition  of  the  importation  of  foreign  wrought 
silks  might  not  be  removed."  The  members  of  the  House  could 
with  difficulty  make  their  way  in  through  the  crowds  of  pale-faced 
operatives,  who  filled  all  the  passages,  and  who  watched  every 
countenance  with  the  wistfulness  of  men  who  are  trying  to  read 
their  fate.  In  the  Hou>e,  the  galleries  were  filled  with  manufac- 
turers, who  occasionally  burst  into  loud  exclamations  of  joy  or 
dismay,  as  the  minister,  gratified  or  disappointed  them.  At  the 
conclusion  of  Mr.  Huskisson's  speech,  however,  they  echoed  the 
cheers  of  the  House  by  a  loud  clapping:  a  token  of  satisfaction 
which  was  thought  to  be  occasioned  by  the  least  wise  part  of  the 
proposed  measures  —  that  which  extended  the  existing  duty  on 
wrought  silks  over  the  next  two  years  and  a  quarter. 

The  duties  on  raw  silk  were  immediately  reduced  to  3d.  per 
pound  from  5s.  l^d.  on  all  that  did  not  come  from  Bengal,  and 
4s.  on  all  that  did.  The  risk  was  thought  too  great  of  making  a 
corresponding  reduction  of  the  duties  on  thrown  silk  ;  and  they 
were  therefore  reduced  less  than  one  half — from  14s.  Sd.  to  7s. 
6rf.  per  pound.  The  prohibition  against  the  importation  of  for- 
eign silks  was  to  continue  up  to  July,  1826,  when  they  were  to 
be  admitted  at  an  ad  valorem  duty  of  thirty  per  cent.  By  this 
latter  provision  it  was  expected  that  time  would  be  given  for 
preparation  for  the  change,  and  for  smoothing  the  transition. 
But  it  was  found  so  injurious  in  its  working,  by  the  uncertainty, 
slackness  of  sales,  and  derangement  of  demand  that  it  caused, 
that  the  minister  avowed  this  to  be  the  one  great  error  of  his 
scheme,  and  men  of  business  learned  from  the  ease  of  the  silk 
manufacturers  now,  that  far  less  mischief  is  done  by  a  prompt 
than  a  lingering  change,  when  alterations  in  commercial  policy 
have  to  be  made.  Mr.  Huskisson  was  so  far  free  from  the  re- 


HISTORY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [BOOK  VIL 

sponsibility  of  the  injurious  delay,  that  he  declared  *  "  in  his  own 
opinion,  the  time  which  had  been  granted  was  not  at  all  called 
for.  but  he  had  ceded  it  in  deference  to  the  feelings  of  the  parties 
interested,  and  with  a  view  to  conciliate,  as  much  as  possible, 
those  who  thought  their  interests  might  suffer  by  the  measure." 
It  is  amusing  now  to  see  one  reason  alleged  for  the  delay  of  the 
change.  "  We  hope  we  shall  have  time  to  get  out  of  the  trade 
before  the  storm  arrives."  2  As  for  the  poor  weavers,  who  could 
not  "  get  out  of  the  trade,"  their  tone  was  very  humble.  They 
**  thanked  the  House  and  the  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer  *  for 
the  postponement  of  the  day  of  their  destruction  till  1 826,  and 
prayed  that  it  might  be  further  postponed  till  1829.  The  bill 
passed  the  Commons  on  the  25th  of  March,  and  the  Lords  on 
the  2 1st  of  May.4 

And  what  happened,  when  this  day  of  destruction  arrived? 
The  poor  weavers  who  had  been,  from  their  first  aggregation  as 
a  body,  subject  to  periodical  famine,  when  the  hand  of  charity 
was  regularly  invoked  to  lead  them  back  from  death's  door,  — 
how  was  it  with  them  now,  when  they  were  awaiting  a  worse 
crisis  than  any  they  had  known  ?  What  a  blessed  relief  it  must 
have  been  to  these  thousands  who  had  been  kept  in  a  state  of 
nervous  apprehension  for  above  two  years,  to  find  their  manu- 
facture growing  brisker  from  month  to  month,  and  their  children 
better  fed  and  clothed  after  the  year  1826  than  they  had  been 
for  a  long  time  before !  In  the  year  1826  itself  there  was  de- 
pression ;  but  it  was  in  consequence  of  the  crash  of  the  banks  at 
that  time,  as  is  proved  by  the  steady  advance  wh'ch  took  place 
in  1827,  and  continued  till,  in  1829.  it  was  found  that  the  silk 
manufacture  was  then  twice  as  extensive  as  in  1821,  1822,  and 
1823,  and  still  progressive.  Our  machinery  and  our  taste  im- 
proved, and  with  them  the  fabric  and  patterns  and  colors  of  our 
manufactured  silks,  till  it  was  clear  to  unprejudiced  eyes  that  the 
English  silks  had  become  superior  to  the  French.  In  ten  years 
from  the  passing  of  the  bill,  and  in  e:ght  years  from  the  admis- 
sion of  French  silks,  we  were  exporting  silk  goods  to  France,  lo 
the  value  of  60.346/L  in  the  year.5  New  mills  were  erected,  and 
the  manufacture  spread  gradually  from  district  to  district,  calling 
more  and  more  thousands  into  employment,  A  voice 
of  distress  was  still  heard  from  Coventry,  while  Lon- 
don, Manches'er,  and  Paisley  were  relieved  and  satisfied.  Th's 
was  because  the  Coventry  people  liked  their  own  old  ways  better 
than  new  ones.  They  would  not  hear  of  power-looms,  except 
from  those  who  complained  of  power-lo  -ms.  and  proposed  to  put 
them  down.  The  member  for  Coventry,  Mr.  Ellice,  pleaded 

*  Hansard,  x.  p.  870.  *  Ibid.  p.  1221.  »  Ibid.  p.  1318- 

*  Ibid.  xL  p.  793.  «  Porter,  {  ii.  c.  2. 


CHAP.  VII.]  COVENTRY  WEAVERS.  401 

their  cause  in  the  House  on  the  23d  of  February,  1826,  in  his 
compassion  for  their  inability  to  compete  with  the  Swiss  and 
French  ribbon-weavers,  when  the  fabrics  of  the  latter  should  be 
introduced  in  July  of  the  same  year.  He  said  :  *  "  The  superi- 
ority of  the  French  and  Swiss  looms  has  been  ascertained  beyond 
all  doubt.  .  .  .  Much  has  been  done  within  the  last  two  years  in 
introducing  improvements;  and  time  and  encouragement  are 
alone  wanting  to  give  confidence  for  further  application  of  capi- 
tal to  this  most  important  object.  One  workman  can  produce, 
with  the  improved  engine-loom  lately  adopted,  six  times  the 
quantity  of  ribbon  he  could  have  before  manufactured  in  his 
common  single-hand  loom  ;  and  it  is  a  melancholy  consideration, 
and  one  eminently  deserving  the  serious  attention  of  the  House 
and  His  Majesty's  government,  that  fully  three  fourths  of  the 
looms  still  in  use  in  Coventry,  to  which  place  this  manufacture 
is  almost  entirely  confined,  are  of  an  inefficient  description,  and 
by  far  the  greater  part  of  them  the  property,  and  it  is  sadly  to 
be  feared  the  only  property,  of  the  operative  weavers  them- 
selves." 

These  last  considerations  are  very  sad ;  and  so  they  were  felt 
to  be  by  the  House  ;  but  when  it  was  proposed  to  decree  protec- 
tion to  the  Coventry  weavers  on  these  grounds,  the  House  decided 
against  it,  —  by  a  vote  of  222  to  40  against  the  appointment  of  a 
committee  to  consider  of  it./  It  was  clear  that,  instead  of  coun- 
tenancing a  preservation  of  the  antiquated  and  bad  methods  of 
weaving  ribbons  by  special  protection,  every  facility  should  be 
afforded  for  improving  the  manufacture  by  competition  writh  the 
most  able  foreigners.  As  it  was  clearly  impossible  to  bring  back 
the  Swiss  and  French  workmen  to  the  use  of  expensive  methods 
and  to  prevent  their  command  of  the  markets  by  their  superior- 
ity, the  only  thing  to  be  done  was  to  emulate  that  superiority,  so 
as  to  meet  them  fairly  in  the  markets  of  the  world.  This  method 
has  completely  answered  in  the  case  of  all  the  other  kinds  of  silk 
manufacture;  and  if  the  Coventry  operatives  continued  to  suffer 
after  those  of  Macclesfield  and  Manchester  had  begun  their  new 
career  of  prosperity,  it  was  not  from  the  removal  of  protection, 
under  which  they  had  sunk  to  their  impoverished  state,  but  to 
their  own  deficiency  of  knowledge  and  skill.  There  was  nothing 
in  their  isolated  case  to  shake  the  confidence  of  the  minister 
when  he  said  : 2  "  Whether  in  a  public  station  or  in  retirement, 
my  greatest  happiness  will  be  to  feel  assured  that  the  power  and 
resources  of  this  country  have  been  increased  by  those  measures 
of  commercial  policy  which  it  has  fallen  to  my  lot  to  submit  to 
parliament.  That  such  will  be  their  ultimate  result  is  my  firm 
and  conscientious  conviction."  Within  three  years  of  the  utter- 

i  Hansard,  xiv.  p.  744.  2  Ibid.  p.  808. 

VOL.  u.  26 


402  HISTORY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [BOOK  II. 

ance  of  these  words,  it  was  proved  that  the  power  and  resources 
of  the  country  had  been  increased  by  the  doubling  of  the  silk 
manufacture,  and  all  the  collateral  advantages  pertaining  to  such 
an  increase.  It  was  against  this  benefactor  of  his  country,  and 
all  who  acted  upon  his  views,  that  a  member  of  the  House,  on 
that  same  night,  quoted,  in  his  horror  of  •'  theory, '  the  Baying 
of  Mr.  Burke,  that  "  a  perfect  metaphysician,  unbending  and 
hard-hearted,  exceeded  the  devil  in  point  of  malignity,  and  con- 
tempt for  the  welfare  of  mankind."  1  This  is  a  striking  lesson  on 
the  operation  of  prejudice  —  a  subject  on  which  there  are  few  men 
who  have  not  something  to  learn. 

The  case  of  the  woollen  manufacture,  which  received  a  similar 
boon  this  year,  was  somewhat  different  from  that  of  silk.  No 
Reduction  duty  was  ever  laid  on  wool  till  1803;  and  then  it 
of  wool  amounted  to  little  more  than  Jo?,  per  Ib.  The  duty 
never  exceeded  Id.  per  Ib.  till  1819,  when  Mr.  Vansit- 
tart  most  imprudently  increased  it  to  Qd.  per  Ib.  The  trade  had 
not  been  prosperous  for  some  time  before  ;  and  this  increase  of 
duty  aggravated  the  mischief  suddenly  and  greatly.  The  decline 
in  the  export  of  woollens  in  the  very  first  year  after  the  imposi- 
tion of  the  duty  was  not  less  than  one  fourth.  It  was  to  retrace 
the  steps  taken,  to  repair,  if  possible,  the  mischief  done,  that  Mr. 
Huskisson  now,  after  five  years'  trial  of  the  augmented  duty,  re- 
verted to  the  former  plan.  Foreign  wool  imported  for  English 
consumption,  of  the  value  of  Is.  per  Ib.  and  upwards,  was  to  pay 
a  duty  of  Id.  per  Ib. ;  and  wool  of  an  inferior  quality  was  to  pay 
\d.  per  Ib.  The  novelty  of  the  scheme  was  that  English  wool- 
growers  were  now  permitted  to  export  wool,  on  payment  of  a 
duty  of  Id.  per  Ib.2 

Before  this  time,  the  state  of  the  case  was  this.  The  agricul- 
turists would  have  liked  that  the  manufacturers  should  be  allowed 
to  have  no  wool  but  theirs ;  and  what  they  desired  was  a  high 
duty  on  the  wool  that  was  brought  in,  while  they  themselves 
should  be  allowed  to  export  wool  freely,  —  selling  it  abroad  or  at 
home,  wherever  they  could  get  the  best  price  for  it.  This,  of 
course,  was  not  considered  a  reasonable  demand.  The  manufac- 
turers, on  their  part,  wished  that  the  exportation  of  British  wool 
should  be  prohibited,  while  they  begged  for  a  free  importation. 
In  behalf  of  this  free  importation  they  alleged,  and  with  truth,  that 
British  wool  is  of  only  limited  use  by  itself.  It  is  good  for  making 
carpets,  baizes,  flannels,  blankets,  and  other  coarse  fabrics ;  but 
it  will  not  make  fine  broadcloth,  unless  mixed  with  foreign  wool. 
This  was  an  excellent  argument  for  the  free  introduction  of  for- 
eign wool ;  but  there  was  nothing  to  be  said  for  the  desired  re- 
striction on  the  British  wool-grower.  When  Mr.  Huskisson  pro- 
1  Hansard,  xiv.  p.  763.  2  Ibid.  x.  p.  329. 


CHAP.  VII.]  DUTIES  ON  WOOL.  403 

posed  to  relieve  both  classes  by  permiiting  wool  to  come  in  and 
go  out  on  payment  of  a  duty  of  Id.  per  Ib.  each  way,  he  was  as- 
sailed with  complaints  and  abuse  from  both  parties,  who  were 
more  a'anned  by  the  benefit  offered  to  their  adversaries  —  as 
they  called  each  other  —  than  pleased  at  the  advantage  given  to 
themselves.  The  minister  had  further  to  susiain  the  abuse  of 
the  large  number  of  persons  who,  in  their  horror  of  "  theory " 
and  "  abstract  notions,"  forgot  that  he  was  reverting  to  a  rate  of 
duty  which  had  existed  only  five  years  before.  However,  he 
knew  what  he  was  about.  He  knew  that  the  unimpeded  impor- 
tation of  foreign  wool  is  absolutely  necessary  to  the  very  exist- 
ence of  the  most  important  part  of  the  manufacture  in  England, 
which  cannot  proceed  without  it.  He  knew  that  the  importation 
would  sustain  the  price  of  British  wools  by  enabling  some  kinds 
to  be  profitably  worked  up,  which  could  not  be  otherwise  used  to 
advantage.  He  was  well  aware  that  much  ground  had  been  lost 
in  foreign  markets  by  the  injurious  policy  of  the  preceding  five 
years,  by  which  the  price  of  wool  had  been  raised  at  home  and 
lowered  abroad,  thus  giving  to  continental  manufacturers  a  great 
advantage  in  the  markets.  But  he  felt  it  to  be  his  duty  to  try 
•whether  the  lost  ground  could  be  regained  ;  and  he  went  forward 
with  his  project  through  all  the  clamor. 

It  was,  indeed,  full  late  to  set  about  retracing  our  steps.  The 
foreigners  were  before  us  everywhere.  As  for  the  home  demand, 
cottons  were  now  largely  superseding  the  woollen  fabrics,  which 
had  been  made  artificially  dear.  This  was  the  complaint  of  the 
manufacturers.  The  lowness  of  price  of  wool,  of  which  the 
growers  complained,  was  partly  owing  to  the  slackness  of  the  de- 
mand for  woollen  goods  just  alluded  to,  —  partly  to  the  much  in- 
creased number  of  sheep  in  the  country,  and  the  greater  weight 
of  the  fleece, —  and  partly  to  the  deterioration  in  the  quality  of 
the  wool,  which  takes  place  when  sheep  are  managed  more  with 
a  view  to  their  mutton  than  their  fleece.  Looking  at  these  con- 
siderations, and  remembering  that  the  exportation  of  wool  con- 
stantly declined  during  the  five  years  of  the  high  import-duty, 
it  is  clear  that  the  English  wool-grower  owed  no  gratitude  to 
Mr.  Vansittart,  and  no  grudge  to  Mr.  Huskisson.  The  latter 
gentleman  gave  the  following  account,  in  February  1826,  of  the 
result  of  his  experiment,  as  far  as  concerned  the  export  and  im- 
port of  wool :  — 

"  Instead  of  our  manufactures  being  ruined,1  —  instead  of  tho 
fulfilment  of  the  assurances  that  all  the  British  wool  would  be 
exported,  to  the  utter  destruction  of  our  manufacturers,  and  that 
from  their  destruction  the  foreign  wool  would  no  longer  be  wanted 
in  this  country,  —  what  has  been  the  real  effect  of  this  measure  ? 
1  Huskissou's  Speeches,  ii.  p.  485. 


404  HISTORY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [Boon  II. 

Why,  that  since  the  removal  of  the  restrictions  on  the  export  we 
have  sent  abroad  the  amazing  quantity  of  100,000  Ibs.  weight 
of  British  wool ;  while,  of  foreign  wool,  we  have  imported  no 
less  a  quantity  than  40,000,000  Ibs.  weight.  This,  sir,  is  not  spec- 
ulation. It  is  practice  and  result  against  speculation.  We  re- 
moved the  restrictive  and  prohibitory  duties,  and  the  conse- 
quences were,  that  we  exported,  comparatively,  none  of  native 
growth,  because  we  had  a  better  market  for  it  at  home."  The 
price  of  wool  continued  so  low,  however,  that  two  years  after 
this  a  committee,  of  the  House  of  Lords  was  appointed  to  in- 
quire into  the  causes.  These  have  been  evident  in  the  course  of 
our  narrative ;  and  it  only  remains  to  show  what  were  the  ex- 
ports of  manufactured  woollens.  In  the  five  years  of  the  heavy 
import-dvty,1  the  average  annual  shipments  amounted  to  1,064.441 
pieces.  In  the  five  years  after  the  removal  of  the  restrictions, 
the  average  annual  shipment  was  1,228,239  pieces ;  and  in  the 
next  five  years  the  average  rose  to  1,505,993  pieces.  It  is  al- 
leged by  the  discontented  that  the  value  of  our  exports  of  wool- 
lens has  not  increased  since  the  beginning  of  the  century ;  and 
this  is  true.  But  it  must  be  remembered  how  far  the  value  sank 
and  had  to  rise  again  ;  and  also  that,  owing  to  the  lowered  price 
of  wool  —  the  grower  being  compensated  by  his  mutton  —  and 
the  economical  improvements  in  the  manufacture,  a  much  greater 
number  of  people  are  employed  in  the  process,  and  accommodated 
with  the  produce,  for  the  same  money-value  which  was  employed 
for  a  smaller  number  at  the  beginning  of  the  century. 

There  was  this  year  a  reduction  of  the  duties  on  coals  and 
rum,  ami  a  repeal  of  the  duties  on  law  proceedings,  and  of  vari- 
ous bounties  which  were  useless,  and  therefore  injurious.  There 
Reduction  was  a^so  a  conversion  of  four  per  cent,  stock  into  three 
of  duties  and  and  a  half,  which  procured  an  annual  saving  to  the 
bounties.  country  of  37o,000/.  The  effects  of  the  peace  upon 
the  purse  began  to  be  tangible.2 

An  important  enactment  of  this  session  was  one  which  es- 
Uniformity  tablished  a  uniformity  of  weights  and  measures.  In 
animal  pursuance  of  a  recommendation  of  a  commission  ap- 
ures.  pointed  by  the  crown,  weights  and  measures  were 

settled  by  natural  standards,  while  the  old  denominations  were 
retained.8  This  difficult  subject,  which  much  needed  attention, 
had  betjn  taken  in  hand  by  six  men  of  science,  appointed  as  a 
commission  in  1819,  who  issued  a  report  in  the  same^year.  The 
Commons'  committee  on  the  subject  in  1821,  considered  their  re- 
port ;  and  two  years  after,  a  Bill  for  the  regulation  of  Weights 
and  Measures  was  brought  in ;  but  it  was  not  carried  till  the  next 

l  Porter,  §  ii.  c.  2.  2  Annual  Register,  1824,  p.  88. 

8  Hansard,  x.  p.  450. 


CHAP.  VII.]  CLOSE   OF  SESSION.  405 

year.  There  was  reason  for  these  delays,  —  important  as  it  was, 
as  a  practical  matter,  affecting  the  interests  of  the  whole  of  soci- 
ety, from  the  masters  of  science  to  the  humblest  purchaser  at  the 
village  shop,  that  measurements  and  weights  should  be  true  and 
uniform.  As  was  observed  by  Dr.  Kelly,  one  of  the  witnesses 
before  the  committee  : 1  "  Nature  seems  to  refuse  invariable  stand- 
ards ;  for,  as  science  advances,  difficulties  are  found  to  multiply, 
or,  at  least,  they  become  more  perceptible,  and  some  appear  insu- 
perable." Till  we  know  all  about  the  level  of  the  sea,  and  the 
effects  upon  the  pendulum  of  every  kind  of  attraction,  with  other 
particulars  of  natural  knowledge  which  remain  to  be  ascertained, 
we  cannot  have  a  perfect  system  of  weights  and  measures. 
Meantime,  scientific  men  are  busy,  all  over  the  civilized  world,  in 
making  researches ;  and  governments  must  do  the  best  they  can 
in  setting  up  improved  standards  in  the  footsteps  of  science,  as 
was  done  in  England  by  the  establishment  of  the  new  imperial 
measures  on  the  1st  of  May,  1825.  It  is  one  of  the  beneficial 
results  of  peace  that  the  masters  of  science  can,  without  imped- 
iment, unite  in  their  processes  of  research,  and  compare  results 
as  they  are  obtained. 

The  session  of  1824  closed,  on  the  25th  of  June,  with  a  speech 
delivered  by  the  King  in  person.     It  was  a  cheerful   close  of 
speech,  free  from  all  regretful  allusions,  except  as  to   sesslon- 
the  disturbed  state  of  Ireland,  and  declaratory  of  peace  with  the 
world  abroad,  and  the  advancing  prosperity  of  every  interest  at 
home. 

1  Penny  Cyclopaedia,  art.  Standard. 


406  HISTORY   OF   THE  PEACE.  [BOOK  IL 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

WE  now  enter   upon  a  chapter  of   modern    English   history 
_      ,  ..        which   the  moralist  regards,  and  will  for  a  centurv  to 

Speculation.  .        .  T 

come  regard,  with  wonder  and  shame.  It  shows  how 
childish  the  mind  of  a  nation  can  be ;  as  crises  of  another  kind 
show  how  brave  and  noble  it  can  be,  according  to  the  appeal 
made  to  its  lower  or  its  high  faculties.  The  same  people  who 
had  been  calm  and  courageous  when  their  national  existence  ap- 
peared to  be  in  peril,  magnanimous  and  disinterested  when  the 
partition  of  European  territory  was  going  on  abroad  after  the 
peace,  stanch  and  loyal  in  the  cause  of  a  persecuted  Queen,  and 
well  principled  in  liberty  when  a  new  course  of  foreign  policy 
was  entered  upon,  were  now  to  prove  themselves  very  children 
under  the  temptation  of  sudden  prosperity,  amidst  extraordinary 
facilities  for  gambling.  It  was  not  altogether  rapacity  which  in- 
Btigated  the  follies  of  1824  and  1825.  Too  many  were  eager 
for  gain,  making  haste  to  be  rich  ;  and  of  these  the  sharpers  of  so- 
ciety made  an  easy  prey ;  but  with  many  more,  the  charm  was  in 
the  excitement  —  in  the  pleasure  of  sympathy  in  large  enterprises 
—  in  the  rousing  of  the  faculties  of  imagination  and  conception, 
when  their  fields  of  commerce  extended  over  the  pampas  and  the 
Andes,  and  beyond  the  furthest  seas,  and  among  the  ice-rocks  of 
the  poles.  When  the  gray-haired  merchant  grew  eloquent  by 
his  fireside  about  the  clefts  of  the  Cordillera,  where  the  precious 
metals  glitter  to  the  miner's  torch,  it  was  not  his  expected  gains 
alone  that  fired  his  eye  and  quickened  his  utterance,  but  that 
gratification  of  his  conceptive  faculty  to  which  his  ordinary  life 
had  ministered  but  too  little.  When  the  professional  man  perilled 
his  savings  to  cut  through  the  Isthmus  of  Panama,  he  gloried  in 
helping  on  a  mighty  work  ;  and  described,  like  a  poet,  the  pouring 
of  the  one  vast  ocean  into  the  other,  and  the  procession  of  the 
merchant-ships  of  the  world  riding  through  on  the  new-mado 
current.  And  so  with  the  aged  ladies  and  retired  servants,  who 
gave  from  their  pittance  of  property  and  income  whatever  they 
could  squeeze  out,  to  hold  shares  in  steam-ovens,  steam-laundries, 
or  milk-and-egg  companies.  They  had  their  visions  of  domestic 
comfort  and  luxury,  and  looked  joyi'ully  tor  the  time  when  the 
good  things  of  the  table  and  the  wardrobe  should  abound,  with 


CHAP.  VIII.]  SPECULATION.  407 

little  expense  of  toil.  Now  was  the  time  for  those  who  make 
their  market  of  the  unwary  to  come  forth  and  be  busy.  Needy 
speculators  and  scheming  attorneys,  and  gamblers  of  every  class, 
used  their  opportunity,  first  for  exciting  the  gambling  spirit 
everywhere  within  their  reach,  and  then  for  introducing  them- 
selves into  a  society  where  at  other  times  they  could  have  ob- 
tained no  admittance.  They  knew  that  their  opportunity  was 
short ;  and  they  used  it  diligently.  Seasons  of  speculation  and 
reaction  may  be  observed  in  the  history  of  every  nation,  and  may 
be  expected  to  recur  till  nations  have  grown  much  wiser  than 
they  are  ;  but  such  a  spectacle  of  intoxication  and  collapse  as  is 
offered  by  the  years  1824-1826  will  hardly,  we  may  hope,  be 
equalled  again  in  England. 

Among  the  records  of  the  time,  we  have  the  following  picture 
of  the  state  of  society,  in  its  material  aspect,  amidst  which  the 
fever  of  speculat:on  arose :  — 

"  The  increased  wealth  of  the  middle  classes  is  so  obvious,1 
that  we  can  neither  walk  the  fields,  visit  the  shops,  nor  examine 
the  workshops  and  storehouses,  without  being  deeply  impressed 
with  the  changes  which  a  few  years  have  produced.  We  see  the 
fields  better  cultivated,  the  barns  and  stack-yards  more  fully 
stored,  the  horses,  cows,  and  sheep  more  abundant  and  in  better 
condition,  and  all  the  implements  of  husbandry  improved  in  their 
order,  their  construction,  and  their  value.  In  the  cities,  towns, 
and  villages,  we  find  shops  more  numerous  and  better  in  their 
appearance,  and  the  several  goods  more  separated  from  each 
other;  a  division  that  is  the  infallible  token  of  increased  sales. 
We  see  the  accumulation  of  wares  of  every  kind  adapted  to  the 
purses,  the  wants,  and  even  the  whims  of  every  description  of 
customers.  This  vast  increase  of  goods,  thus  universally  dis- 
persed, is  an  indication  and  exhibition  of  flourishing  circum- 
stances. It  may  be  traced  into  all  the  manufactories,  and  ob- 
served in  the  masses  of  raw  materials  in  each,  in  commodities  of 
every  kind  in  their  several  si  ages  of  preparation,  and  in  all  the 
subdivisions  of  those  stages,  by  which  not  only  the  increase  of 
wealih  is  manifested,  but  the  modes  by  which  it  is  acquired  are 
practically  illustrated.  If  we  could  ascend  a  little  higher,  and 
examine  the  accounts  of  the  bankers  in  the  metropolis,  and  in  the 
provincial  towns,  small  as  well  as  large,  we  should  find  that  the 
balances  of  money  resting  with  them,  ready  to  embrace  favorable 
changes  in  the  price  of  any  commodity,  or  to  be  placed  at  interest 
as  beneficial  securities  present  themselves,  are  increased  to  an 
enormous  amount.  This,  indeed,  in-iy  be  fairly  inferred  from  the 
low  rate  of  interest  in  the  floating  public  securities,  from  tho 
prices  of  the  funds,  from  the  avidity  with  which  every  project  for 
1  Quarterly  Review,  xxxii.  p.  189. 


408  HISTORY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [BOOK  IL 

the  employment  of  capital  is  grasped  at,  and  from  the  general 
complaint,  almost  the  only  complaint  heard,  that  there  is  now  no 
way  of  making  interest  of  money.  The  projects  for  consti'ucting 
tunnels,  railroads,  canals,  or  bridges,  and  the  eagerness  with 
which  they  are  embraced,  are  all  proofs  of  that  accumulation 
from  savings  which  the  intermediate  ranks  of  society  have,  by 
patience  and  perseverance,  been  enabled  to  form.  The  natural 
effect  of  this  advancement  in  possessions  has  been  an  advance  in 
the  enjoyments  which  those  possessions  can  administer  ;  and  we 
need  not  be  surprised  at  the  general  diffusion  of  those  gratifica- 
tions which  were  formerly  called  luxuries,  but  which,  from  their 
familiarity,  we  now  describe  by  the  softened,  and  exclusively 
English  term,  comforts.  This  is  manifested  in  our  houses,  in 
their  finishing,  in  their  decorations,  and  especially  in  the  numer- 
ous conveniences  with  which  they  are  stored.  The  merchants  of 
London  forty  or  fifty  years  since  lived  in  the  dark  lanes  in  which 
their  counting-houses  are  still  to  be  found,  ate  with  their  clerks 
a  hasty  meal  at  two  o'clock,  and  returned  to  the  desk  to  write 
their  letters,  by  which  they  were  often  occupied  till  midnight. 
The  shopkeepers  lived  behind  their  shops,  their  best  floor  was  let 
to  lodgers,  and  few  only  of  the  wealthier  of  them  could  afford  a 
retreat  from  the  bustle  and  the  cares  of  the  city  to  the  surround- 
ing villages  of  Islington,  Hackney,  or  Cambervvell.  The  water- 
ing-places which  have  sprung  up  on  the  whole  coa-t  of  Kent  and 
Sussex  were  then  unknown  to  those  classes  of  traders,  who  now, 
by  occasionally  resorting  to  them,  and  spending  there  a  part  of 
what  they  can  spare  from  their  annual  savings,  contribute  largely 
to  maintain  the  inhabitants  in  comfort  and  respectability.  If  we 
visit  the  country,  we  experience  the  same  pleasing  emotions  as 
are  communicated  on  the  contemplation  of  the  increased  enjoy- 
ments of  the  city.  We  do  not  see  indeed  among  the  farmers 
such  great  strides,  but  we  see  universal  advancement.  The  prof- 
its on  their  capitals  are  necessarily  lower,  and  their  growth  con- 
sequently less  rapid  ;  but  in  the  last  forty  or  fifty  years  they,  too, 
have  made  considerable  progress.  Whilst  they  have  exchanged 
the  work  of  the  hands  for  that  of  the  head,  they  have  exchanged 
also  the  round  frock  of  the  ploughman  for  garments  more  suita- 
ble to  their  improved  condition.  Their  houses  are  more  commo- 
dious and  better  furnished ;  carpets,  china  plates,  and  glasses  are 
to  be  seen,  instead  of  stone  floors,  trenchers,  and  drinking-horns. 
Their  wives  and  daughters,  upon  whom  the  refinement  of  society 
mainly  depends,  are  generally  better  educated,  and  are  able  to 
attract  their  husbands  and  brothers  from  the  fairs  and  the  mar- 
kets at  an  earlier  hour,  and  with  less  frequent  breaches  of  the 
rules  of  sobriety,  than  were  practised  in  the  last  generation.  The 
country  inn  is  no  longer  superior  in  neatness  or  comfort  to  the 


CHAP.  VIII.]  EXPORTATION  OF  GOLD.  409 

farmer's  own  house.  Among  the  manufacturers,  we  see  some 
with  princely  jet  well-merited  fortunes.  But  there  is  a  numer- 
ous class  interior  to  them,  who  have  amassed,  and  are  amassing, 
considerable  wealth,  and  dispensing  employment  to  thousands  of 
their  poorer  neighbors.  We  have  had  occasion  before  to  notice 
the  increased  population  of  Manchester,  Leeds,  Birmingham,  and 
several  other  places  which  have  been  the  scenes  of  their  opera- 
tions. Forty  years  ago,  we  were  well  acquainted  with  those 
places,  with  the  fortunes  which  were  then  enjoyed,  and  the  habits 
tlien  prevailing.  On  recent  visits,  after  a  long  absence,  we  felt 
a  decree  of  astonishment  wh'cli  we  cannot  describe,  at  the  changes 
which  have  taken  place.  We  do  not  speak  of  the  numerous  in- 
dividuals, whose  fathers  or  grandfathers  had,  almost  within  recol- 
lection, hardly  emerged  from  the  condition  of  day-laborers,  and 
whom  we  now  found  the  owners  of  magnificent  establishments  ; 
for  single  instances  prove  little  in  a  case  like  this ;  but  we  allude 
to  the  immense  addition  to  the  buildings,  the  improvement  in 
their  construction,  and  the  general  advance  which  the  owners  had 
made  in  all  the  liberal  tastes  and  enjoyments  of  life." 

Such  was  the  buoyant  tone  of  the  time.  Such  was  the  record, 
much  of  which  was  to  merge  into  silent  d  smay,  the  gazette,  and 
the  obitu  iry. 

Early  in  the  spring  of  1824,  gold  and  silver  were  exported  to 
South  America  ; *  yet  nobody  appeared  to  observe  that  Exportation 
there  was  too  much  money  abroad.  In  June  and  July,  of  s°ld- 
there  was  a  decided  fall  in  the  exchanges  with  the  continent;  yet 
no  one  seemed  to  take  the  alarm.  The  Bank  of  England  went 
on  increasing  its  issues  through  the  whole  of  1824,  and  for  three 
months  of  the  next  year  ;  and  it  was  not  tijl  the  end  of  that  time, 
in  the  spring  of  Itf25,  that  even  sagacious  men  of  business  began 
audibly  to  prophesy  the  evil  to  come.  At  that  time,  some  few 
declared  their  belief  that  a  terrible  revulsion  might  be  looked  for 
soon.  Hut  it  was  then  too  late.  Between  June,  1824,  and  Octo- 
ber, 1825,  from  tm  to  twelve  millions  of  coin  and  bullion  were 
exported  ;  and  during  the  greater  part  of  that  time,  the  Bank  of 
England  was  still  putting  out  its  notes  ;  and  the  provincial  banks 
issued  as  many  as  they  could,  till  the  country  was  deluged  with 
paper  money.  Many  a  man  set  up  for  a  banker  who  would,  at 
another  time,  have  as  soon  thought  of  setting  up  for  a  king. 
Lord  Liverpool  complained,  after  the  crisis,  of  the  system  which 
allows  any  petty  tradesman,  any  cobbler,  or  cheesemonger,  to 
usurp  the  royal  prerogative,  and  to  issue  money  without  check  or 
control.  There  was  a  perfect  mania  of  competition  in  making 
paper  issues.  Many  of  the  country  bankers,  who  afterwards 
failed,  discounted  the  paper  that  was  brought  to  them  by  the 
1  Edinburgh  Review,  xliv.  p.  92. 


410  HISTORY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [Boox  IL 

wildest  and  wickedest  speculators,  and  paid  a  large  commis-ion 
to  persons  who  undertook  to  promote  the  circulation  of  their 
notes. 

This  inordinate  supply  of  money  followed  upon  a  deficiency  of 
currency  in  1821  and  1822;  in  which  latter  year  an  act  was 
passed  permitting  the  circulation  of  small  notes  beyond  the  date 
originally  fixed.  This  extension  of  time  tempted  the  bankers  to 
increase  their  issues,  instead  of  providing  for  the  withdrawal  of 
some  of  their  paper.  In  1825,  there  was  from  thirty  to  forty  per 
cent,  more  paper  out  than  in  1822.  Just  at  that  time,  the  Bank 
of  England,  followed  by  other  banks,  lowered  the  rate  of  interest. 
Thus  there  was  money  in  abundance,  which  its  owners  did  not 
know  what  to  do  with.  The  rate  of  interest  was  low.  Prices 
had  been  so  low  for  two  years  that  they  were  sure  to  rise,  sud- 
denly and  vastly,  while  so  much  money  was  abroad ;  and  the 
opportunity  for  speculating  was  one  which  few  men  of  enterprise, 
engaged  in  trade,  were  able  to  resist. 

It  would  have  been  well  if  the  rage  for  speculation  had  been 
joint-stock  confined  to  men  engaged  in  trade.  The  madness 
companies,  spread  everywhere.  Retired  professional  men,  living 
on  their  acquired  fortunes,  ladies  deriving  all  their  income  from 
the  funds,  families  who  had  lent  their  money  on  mortgages, 
looked  at  the  low  interest  on  money  on  the  one  hand,  and  the 
enormous  profits  made  by  speculation  on  the  other,  and  grew 
dissatisfied.  Hundreds  who  had  before  been  content  with  their 
moderate  incomes,  and  had  blessed  God  that  their  lot  had  lain 
between  poverty  and  riches,  now  watched  with  jealousy  the  op- 
portunities of  their  neighbors ;  were  offended  if  shares  in  some 
joint-stock  company  were  not  offered  to  them,  or  sighed  if  obliged 
to  admit  that  they  were  not  rich  enough  to  pledge  themselves  to 
a  series  of  calls.  Some  who  went  on  in  their  ordinary  course, 
untouched  by  the  madness  of  the  time,  were  reproached  for  injus- 
tice to  their  families,  in  declining  to  help  themselves  from  the 
stores  of  wealth  which  were  poured  out  all  around.  These  were 
justified  in  the  end ;  but  they  suffered,  more  or  less,  with  the 
rest ;  for  this  is  a  case  in  which  the  suffering  can  never  be  con- 
fined to  those  who  err.  The  scheming  attorneys,  the  needy  spec- 
ulators, the  excitable  professional  men  and  ladies,  and  the  igno- 
rant small  capitalists  whom  they  led  astray,  were  the  sinners ; 
but  many  an  honorable  and  sagacious  merchant,  who  saw  whither 
things  were  tending,  and  did  his  utmost  to  preserve  himself  and 
his  neighbors,  was  half  ruined,  or  wholly  ruined,  by  the  conse- 
quences of  other  people's  folly.  He,  like  others,  suffered  by  the 
stoppage  of  the  banks,  the  sudden  contraction  of  the  currency,  and 
the  prodigious  depreciation  of  every  kind  of  stock. 

While  the  rate  of  interest  was  lowest,  the  possessors  of  capital 


CHAP.  VIII.]  JOINT-STOCK  COMPANIES.  411 

were  easily  tempted  to  invest  their  money  in  some  scheme  which 
should  yield  them  an  abundant  return.  While  the  rate  of  inter- 
est was  lowest,  men  were  tempted  to  borrow  larger  sums  than 
they  would  otherwise  have  ventured  on,  wherewith  to  carry  on 
their  speculations.  And,  again,  this  was  the  time  when  bankers 
were  willing  to  discount  bills  at  very  long  dates,  for  speculators 
to  buy  up  goods,  hold  them  back  for  the  high  prices  expected  to 
ensue,  and  thus  enhance  the  prices  yet  further  by  creating  an 
artificial  scarcity.  At  the  very  time  when  even  reasonable  peo- 
ple were  discontented  with  the  low  interest  they  obtained  for 
their  money,  while  threatened  with  high  prices  to  come,  they  saw 
their  neighbors  making  fortunes  almost  in  a  day,  by  skilful  buy- 
ing and  selling  among  the  projects  afloat.  A  young  lady  whose 
brother  had  encouraged  her  to  take  a  share  of  100/.  in  some 
joint-stock  project,  might  pay  her  first  instalment  of  5/.  with 
some  trembling,  and  wonder  when  the  next  call  would  come. 
But  if  her  brother  brought  her  140/.  in  a  few  days,  with  the 
news  that  he  had  sold  out  for  her  while  the  premium  was  thus 
high,  would  she  sit  down  content  with  having  for  once  gained 
35/.  by  her  o/.  ?  Would  she  not  be  as  eager  to  invest  again  as 
the  managers  could  be  that  she  should  ?  Thus  it  was  with  many 
thousands  of  ladies,  and  gentlemen  as  inexperienced  as  tliey. 
Some  selfish  wretches  knew  well  enough  what  must  happen,  and 
only  wanted  to  get  rich  before  the  crash  —  to  use  the  madness 
while  it  might  serve  their  turn.  The  greater  number  were 
seduced  into  the  gambling  game  ;  but  all,  guilty,  thoughtless, 
and  innocent  together,  suffered  more  or  less  under  the  inevitable 
retribution. 

As  for  what  the  speculation  was  like,  it  can  hardly  be  recorded, 
even  at  this  day,  on  the  open  page  of  history,  without  a  blush. 
Besides  the  joint-stock  companies  who  undertook  baking,  wash- 
ing, baths,  life-insurance,  brewing,  coal-portage,  wool-growing, 
and  the  like,  there  was  such  a  rage  for  steam-navigation,  canals, 
ami  railroads,  that,  in  the  session  of  1825,1  438  petitions  for  pri- 
vate bills  were  presented,  and  286  private  acts  were  passed. 
Part  of  the  retribution  of  the  national  folly  lay  in  the  decline  of 
the  character  of  the  House  of  Commons,  too  many  of  whose 
members  acted,  in  regard  to  these  bills,  with  a  recklessness  which 
subjected  them  to  a  suspicion  that  they,  like  others,  had  forgotten 
themselves,  and  had  sacrificed  their  legislative  conscience  to  the 
interests  of  themselves  and  their  friends.  The  acknowledgment 
of  the  independence  of  some  of  the  South  American  States  at 
this  time  turned  the  stream  of  speculation  in  that  direction. 
Companies  were  formed  to  obtain  gold  and  silver  from  mountain 
tops  and  clefts,  where  there  were  no  workmen  or  tools  to  do  the 
1  Annual  Register,  1825,  p.  121. 


412  HISTORY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [BOOK  H. 

work,  no  fuel  for  the  fires,  and  no  roads  or  carriages  to  bring  away 
the  produce.  There  were  to  be  pearls  from  the  coast  of  Colum- 
bia; and  such  precious  articles  were  to  come  from  the  other 
hemisphere,  that  .-ober  persons  began  to  fear  too  great  a  change 
in  the  affairs  and  the  mind  of  the  English  people.  There  would 
be  so  much  gold  and  silver,  that,  after  the  Chancellor  of  the  Ex- 
chequer had  paid  off  the  national  debt,  the  value  of  money  in 
England  and  all  Europe  would  be  essentially  changed.  Gems 
and  pearls  were  to  abound  to  such  a  degree  that  the  jewels  of 
ancient  families  were  soon  to  be  shamed.  The  higher  orders 
began  to  look  about  them,  when  these  things  were  said  ;  and, 
finding  that  the  middle  and  lower  classes  were  to  become  very 
rich  in  a  short  time,  they  too  rushed  into  the  scramble  for  the 
wealth  of  South  America.  It  is  on  record  *  that  a  single  share  of 
the  Real  del  Monte  mine,  on  which  70/.  had  been  paid,  yielded 
2000  per  cent,  having  risen  speedily  to  a  premium  of  140U/. 
per  share. 

People  who  declined  the  grosser  kind  of  gambling  —  by  Stock 
Exchange  speculations  —  attached  themselves  to  the  idea  of 
growing  rich  by  trading  with  the  new  markets  opened  on  the 
other  side  of  the  Atlantic.  At  Rio  Janeiro  more  Manchester 
goods  arrived  in  a  few  weeks  than  had  been  before  required  for 
twenty  years ;  and  merchandise  —  much  of  it  perishable  —  was 
left  exposed  on  the  beach,  among  thieves  and  under  variable 
weather,  till  the  over-crowded  warehouses  could  aflprd  room  for 
its  stowage.  It  is  positively  declared,  that  warming-pans  from 
Birmingham  were  among  the  articles  exposed  under  the  burning 
sun  of  that  sky ;  and  that  skates  from  Sheffield  were  offered  for 
sale  to  a  people  who  had  never  heard  of  ice.  China  and  cut-glass 
were,  in  some  places,  pressed  upon  the  natives,  as  preferable  to 
the  cocoa-nut  shells  and  cow-horns,  which  had  hitherto  been  their 
dishes  and  drinking-vessels.  A  work  of  the  time,2  written  by  a 
lively  observer  of  things  on  the  spot,  gives  an  idea  which  may  be 
exaggerated  but  which  must  have  some  truth  in  it,  of  how  these 
South  American  projects  were  set  on  foot,  and  carried  out :  — 

"  We  had  all  sorts  of  English  speculations  in  South  America, 
some  of  which  were  really  amusing.  Besides  many  brother  com- 
panies which  I  met  with  at  Buenos  Ayres,  I  found  a  sister  asso- 
ciation of  milkmaids.  It  had  suddenly  occurred  to  some  of  the 
younger  sons  of  John  Bull,  that,  as  there  were  a  number  of  beau- 
tiful cows  in  the  United  Provinces  of  Rio  de  la  Plata,  a  quantity 
of  good  pasture,  and  as  the  people  of  Buenos  Ayres  had  no  but- 
ter to  their  bread,  a  churning  company  would  answer  admirably  ; 
and  before  the  idea  was  many  months  old,  a  cargo  of  Scotch 

1  Quarterlv  Review,  xxxi.  p.  352. 

2  Head's  "  Rough  Notes,"  &c.  pp.  303,  304. 


CHAP.  VIII.]  THE   COLLAPSE.  413 

milkmaids  were  lying  becalmed  under  the  line,  on  their  passage 
to  make  butter  at  Buenos  Ayres."  When  arrived,  "the  difficul- 
ties they  had  to  contend  with  were  very  great.  Instead  of  lean- 
ing their  heads  against  patient  domestic  animals,  they  were 
introduced  to  a  set  of  lawless,  wild  creatures,  who  looked  so  fierce 
that  no  young  woman  who  ever  sat  upon  a  three-legged  stool 
could  dare  to  approach,  much  less  to  milk  them.  But  the 
guachos  attacked  the  cows,  tied  their  legs  with  strips  of  hide,  and 
as  soon  as  they  became  quiet,  the  shops  of  Buenos  Ayres  were 
literally  full  of  butter.  But  now  for  the  sad  moral  of  the  story. 
After  the  difficulties  had  been  all  conquered,  it  was  discovered, 
first,  that  the  butter  would  not  keep  ;  and  secondly,  that,  somehow 
or  other,  the  guachos  and  natives  of  Buenos  Ayres  liked  oil  bet- 
ter !  "  This  gentleman  was  himself  a  victim  of  the  spirit  of  the 
time.  He  went  out  as  manager  of  one  of  the  mining  associa- 
tions ;  left  two  cargoes  of  English  and  German  miners  at  Buenos 
Ayres,  and  rode  on  to  explore,  galloping  a  thousand  miles  here, 
and  twelve  hundred  miles  there,  in  search  of  a  fit  spot  to  which 
to  transport  his  miners.  He  found,  as  others  did,  that  between 
fraud  and  folly,  there  was  no  hope,  and  there  had  never  been  any 
so  id  ground  for  speculation  to  build  on.1  Some  of  the  Germans 
wished  to  remain  in  the  country ;  the  whole  of  the  rest,  English 
and  Germans,  returned  without  having  gone  into  the  interior  at 
all ;  and  the  company  was  dissolved,  with  a  loss  of  at  least 
50,000/.  These  are  mere  single  specimens  of  a  folly  and  rash- 
ness which  were  the  epidemic  of  the  time.  The.  reaction  was 
not  long  in  coming. 

On  the  6th  of  July,  1825,  the  Lord  Chancellor  read  the  Kind's 
speech,  dismissing  the  parliament  for  the  session.  The  speech 
avowed  that  the  "  general  and  increasing  prosperity  on  which  his 
majesty  had  the  happiness  of  congratulating  "  his  parliament  at 
the  opening  of  the  session,  continued  "  to  pervade  every  part  of 
the  kingdom."2  Yet  there  were  a  good  many  people  in  the  king- 
dom who  were  in  a  very  different  state  of  spirits  about  this  pros- 
perity from  that  which  they  had  been  in  at  the  opening  of  the 
session.  In  the  early  spring,  the  funds  had  begun  to 

11-  i  •  *•     i  .11  I-*-         Collapse. 

decline  ;  and  soon  the  prices  of  almost  all  commudities 
were  lowered.  Cotton,  wine,  silk,  and  other  foreign  products 
came  into  the  market  in  such  vast  quantities,  that  it  must  be 
long  before  they  could  be  sold  off;  and  their  prices  fell  incessantly, 
both  from  the  superabundance,  and  from  the  eagerness  of  the 
holders  to  sell.  No  returns  came  in  from  the  great  speculations 
in  fbre'gii  countries :  no  gold  and  silver  from  the  Andes ;  no 
profits  from  the  butter  of  the  Pampas ;  no  tolls  from  the  canal 
which  was  to  unite  the  Atlantic  and  Pacific;  no  pearls  from  the 
1  Quarterly  Review,  xxxv.  p.  117.  3  Hansard,  xiii.  p.  1488. 


414  HISTORY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [BOOK  IL 

coast  of  Columbia.     Again,  a  multitude  of  traders  had  exhausted 
their  credit  in  obtaining  capital  which  they  had  locked  up  in  en- 
terprises extending  far  into  the  future;  and  their  immediate  want 
of  money  was  pressing.     Without  it,  they  could  not  await  the 
release  of  the  capital  they  had  locked  up.     They  importuned  the 
bankers  for  further  advances ;   but  the  bankers  were  as  much 
hampered  as  anybody ;  they  had  been  tempted,  some  months  be- 
fore, by  the  abundance  of  money,  and  the  low  rate  of  interest,  to 
discount  bills  of  extremely  long  dates,  and  to  lend  accommodation 
on  securities  of  which  they  could  make  no  use,  in  the  present 
state  of  the  market.     Just  at  this  most  critical  time,  the  Bank  of 
England  began  to  draw  in.     Her  issues  had  been  profuse  when 
money  was  too  plentiful,  and  gold  was  rapidly  leaving  the  country. 
Now,  when  money  was  wanted  in  abundance  to  rescue  commer- 
cial credit  on  all  hands,  she  began  to  be  stiff  about  discounting, 
and  to  contract  her  issues.     Panic  first,  and  then  despair,  were  the 
consequence.     Every  man .  seemed  ready  to  seize  his  debtor   by 
the  throat,  and  say,  "  Pay  me  that  thou  owest."     The  hilarity 
and  openness  of  heart  and  hand  which  had  made  England  such  a 
sunny  place  a  year  ago,  were  gone  ;  and  instead,  there  was  now 
the  suspicion  with  which  every  man  regarded  his  debtor  and  his 
creditor ;  the  daily  dread  of  the  post ;  the  eager  glance  at  the 
gazette  ;  the  walking  out  to  await  the  mail ;  the  laying  down  of 
pony-carriage  and  new  footman  ;  the  giving  up  the  visit  to  the 
sea,  and  the  subscription  to  the  book-club  and  concert ;  and  even, 
too  often,  the  humbling  inquiry  of  servants,  whether  they  could 
wait  awhile^for  their  wages.     The  manufacturer   looked  round 
on  his  overloaded  shelves,  and  for  every  thousand  pounds'  worth 
of  goods  now  reckoned  five  hundred.     The  widow  lady  and   her 
daughters,  who  had  paid  ready  money  all  their  lives,  now  found 
themselves  without  income  for  half  a  year  together,  and  could 
not  enjoy  a  meal,  because  the  butcher's  and  baker's  bill  was  run- 
ning on.     The  dying  man,  who  could  not  wait  for  better  days, 
altered  his  will  with  a  sigh,  lessening  his  children's    portions  by 
one  half  or  two  thirds.     Young  lovers,  who  were  to  have  had  a 
jocund  wedding  this  autumn,  looked  in  one  another's  faces,  and 
saw  that  it  must  not  be  thought  of  at  present.     But  worse  was 
to  come. 

Here  and  there,  the  failure  of  a  commercial  house  was  an- 
.  nounced.     First,  the   failures  were   of  houses  which 

nobody  supposed  to  be  very  stable  ;  but  presently,  one 
firm  after  another  stopped  payment ;  one  known  to  possess  enor- 
mous landed  estates;  another  to  be  the  proprietor  of  rich  mines  ; 
a  third  to  have  great  wealth,  fixed  or  afloat,  in  foreign  lands.  In 
these  cases,  the  same  story  was  always  told  ;  that  it  was  merely 
a  temporary  embarrassment,  and  that  the  firms  possessed  prop- 


CHAP.  VIII.]  PANIC.  — THE  CRASH.  415 

erty  far  exceeding  in  value  their  entire  liabilities.  But  so  many 
of  these  embarrassments  occurred,  each  spreading  disorder  over 
its  own  range  of  influence,  that  it  presently  became  doubtful 
what  any  kind  of  property  was  really  worth,  for  any  practical 
purpose.  Then,  of  course,  came  the  turn  of  the  bunks  —  the 
securities  they  held  for  their  vast  and  rash  advances  having  be- 
come, for  the  time,  little  better  than  waste-paper.  In  a  country 
town,  one  market-day,  the  aspect  of  the  market-place  was  very 
unlike  its  wont.  The  country  people  were  leaving  their  stalls, 
and  collecting  in  groups,  while  some  made  haste  to  pack  up  their 
produce,  and  put  to  their  horses,  and  hie  home  as  if  they  ex- 
pected to  be  robbed  if  they  stayed.  Here,  a  man  passed  with  a 
gioomy  face,  and  a  bank-note  clutched  in  his  hand  ;  there,  a 
woman  wrung  her  hands,  and  wept ;  and  an  actual  wail,  of  many 
voices,  was  heard  amidst  the  hubbub  of  the  place.  The  bank  of 
the  district  had  stopped  payment.  The  hopeful  went  about  tell- 
ing all  they  met  that  it  was  only  for  a  time,  and  that  everybody 
would  be  paid  at  last ;  the  desponding  said  that  how  it  had  be- 
gun, there  was  no  saying  where  it  would  stop,  and  that  every- 
body would  be  ruined  ;  and  neither  the  hopeful  nor  the  despond- 
ing could  suggest  anything  to  be  done.  Buying  and  selling  came 
almost  to  a  stand  ;  for  the  country  people  looked  at  every  kind 
of  bank-note  as  if  it  would  burn  their  fingers,  and  thought  they 
would  ratlier  go  home  than  sell  anything  at  all.  Before  going 
home,  however,  all  who  had  money  in  any  bank  ran  to  get  it 
out.  The  run  upon  the  banks  spread  from  district  to  district, 
and  very  soon  to  London.  Lombard  Street  was  full  of  men  of 
business,  standing  about,  waiting  to  hear  the  disasters  of  the 
day  ;  or  of  persons,  even  of  great  wealth,  who  were  hastening 
to  their  bankers,  to  draw  out  their  deposits.  It  was  a  time  which 
tried  the  faith,  and  courage,  and  generosity  of  the  rich.  Some 
did  not  trouble  their  bankers  by  any  kind  of  application  ;  and 
some  few  drove  up  in  their  carriages,  and  carried  away  heavy 
bags  of  gold,  with  or  without  apparent  shame.  On  the  5th  of 
December,  the  mjws  spread  with  the  speed  of  the  wind,  that  the 
banking-house  of  Sir  Peter  Pole  and  Company  had  stopped.1 
This  must  occasion  many  failures  in  the  provinces,  as  this  firm 
had  accounts  with  forty-four  country  banks.  The  funds  Cragh 
went  down  immediately ;  and  faster  still  next  day, 
when  the  bank  of  Williams  and  Company  stopped.  From  this 
time,  the  crash  went  on  without  intermission,  till,  in  five  or  six 
weeks,  from  sixty  to  seventy  banks  had  stopped  payment. 

The  question  now  was,  how  to  get  money  to  go  on  with  from 
day  to  day:  a  question  which  involved  that  of  the  very  life  of 
the  working  classes  through   the  winter.     There  seemed  to  be 
i  Annual  Register,  1825,  p.  123. 


4i6  HISTORY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [BOOK  II. 

nothing  before  millions  of  them  but  absolute  starvation,  unless 
commerce  could  be  set  agoing  again,  more  or  less.  If  they  c<>uld 
not  earn,  they  must  starve  ;  for  even  those  of  them  who  had 
some  property  could  not  sell.  The  pawnbrokers'  hou.-es  \\ere 
crammed  from  the  rafters  to  the  door-step,  till  they  would  not 
hold  one  article  more  ;  and  if  they  had,  the  pawnbrokers  had  no 
money,  any  more  than  other  people.  It  was  a  touching  thing  to 
those  who  had  acquaintance  among  the  poor,  to  s  -e,  that  winter, 
the  bride-housewife,  who  had  lately  looked  forward  to  a  marriage 
of  substantial  comfort,  polishing  up  her  new  furniture,  or  lo  'king 
for  something  to  mend  in  her  own  or  her  husband's  new  clothes, 
while  the  faces  of  both  were  wan  with  hunger.  It  was  touching 
to  see  how  long  the  pride  of  the  decent  dressmaker,  and  the 
skilled  weaver  and  his  wife,  leaning  faint  agiinst  their  idle  loom, 
stood  out  against  the  charity  soup  and  loaf — declaring,  even  till 
it  became  no  longer  true,  that  they  could  point  out  some  neigh- 
bors who  would  be  glad  of  tickets,  but  that,  for  themselves,  they 
could  not  say  they  had  ever  wanted  bread  These  thing*  were 
seen  and  heard  from  street  to  street  of  every  town,  throughout 
that  winter,  even  after  government  and  generous-hearted  capi- 
talists had  done  all  that  could  be  done  to  stop  the  derangement 
of  the  national  affairs. 

On  the  failure  of  Pole  and  Co.'s  bank,  meetings  of  the  cabinet 
took  place,  and  went  on  with  unusual  frequency,  till  the  disorder 
issue  of  began  to  subside.  Ten  days  after  the  stoppage  of 
small  notes  Pole's  bank,  an  issue  was  made  of  one  and  two  pound 
om'  bank  notes  for  couniry  circulation  ;  and  the  Mint  was 
set  to  work  to  coin  sovereigns  as  fast  as  its  machinery  would  go. 
For  above  a  week  the  coinage  amounted  to  loO,000  sovereigns 
per  day.1  At  the  same  time,  the  most  influential  and  secure  men 
of  business  in  London  and  in  the  great  towns  held  meetings, 
where  they  adopted  resolutions  pointing  to  the  support  of  com- 
mercial credit.  This  show  of  confidence,  and  the  somewhat  in- 
creased supply  of  money,  raised  the  spirits  and  allayed  the  panic 
of  society ;  and  by  the  end  of  the  year  —  the  year  which  had 
opened  so  brilliantly  !  —  the  nation  began  to  think  it  might,  one 
way  or  another,  struggle  through  ;  resolving,  with  the  desperate 
earnestness  natural  at  such  crises,  if  it  once  got  out  of  this 
scrape,  never  to  fall  into  such  a  one  again  ;  a  resolution  which, 
in  this  case,  as  in  that  of  an  individual  sinner,  lasted  only  till 
the  next  season  of  strong  temptation. 

The  first  days  of  the  new  year  were,  however,  dark  enough. 

Though  the  banks  no  longer  broke  by  the  half-dozen  a  day,  the 

crash  was  not  over.      Here  and  there,  one  which  had  struggled 

on,  and  hoped  to  get  through,  was  obliged  to  give  up  at  last ;  and 

i  Annual  Register,  1825,  p.  124. 


CHAP.  VIII.]     SUPPRESSION  OF  SMALL  NOTES.  417 

on  every  such  occasion,  there  was  a  spread  of  distress  through 
the  district.  Still  there  was  no  employment  for  the  poor,  except 
such  as  was  created  for  them ;  and  some  of  the  Lancashire 
operatives  rose,  to  destroy  the  machinery  which  they  supposed 
to  be  the  cause  of  the  glut  in  the  markets.  The  ship-owners 
charged  the  same  fact  upon  the  relaxation  of  the  navigation 
laws,  and  clamored  accordingly.  On  the  whole,  however,  the 
patience  and  fortitude  shown  by  the  most  suffering  parties  were 
as  remarkable  as  the  rashness  and  selfishness  of  the  speculators 
who  had  plunged  them  into  their  misery. 

It  was  the  business  of  parliament  to  see  what  it  could,  and 
what  it  could  not,  do  in  such  cases  as  the  present ;  how  much  of 
the  mischief  was  occasioned  by  bad,  or  could  be  prevented  by 
good  laws ;  and  how  much  was  independent  of  legislative  action 
altogether.     This   inquiry  was   recommended   in  the   King's 
King's  speech,  delivered  by  commission  on  the  2d  of    Bi>~ech 
February ;  and  both  Houses  began  to  debate  the  matter  at  once.1 

Some  few  members  of  each  House  were  eager  to  bring  for- 
ward their  favorite  topics,  in  connection  with  the  prevalent  dis- 
tress, which  was,  indeed,  large  enough  to  hang  every  political 
idea  upon  ;  but  the  greater  number  were  anxious  to  hear  what  the 
ministers  had  to  say,  in  explanation  of  the  past,  and  proposal  for 
the  future.  Lord  Liverpool  stated  the  fact,2  that  the  issue  of 
paper  by  country  banks  was  more  than  double  in  1825  what  it 
had  been  in  1823.  During  the  years  1821,  1822,  and  1823,  the 
value  of  notes  stamped  for  country  bankers  had  been,  on  an 
average,  a  little  above  four  millions.  In  1824  it  had  reached  six 
millions;  and  in  182o  it  exceeded  eight  millions.  The  Bank  of 
England  was  at  the  same  time  augmenting  its  issues,  though  less 
remarkably.  It  was  now  to  be  proposed  by  government,  to  pro- 
hibit the  circulation  of  ll.  and  21.  notes,  after  a  certain  period ; 
and  next,  to  negotiate  with  the  Bank  of  England  for 
an  alteration  of  the  terms  of  its  privileges.  The  char-  J^^ith 
ter  of  the  Bank  was  not  to  expire  till  1833;  but  it  £a"!tt* 

.     i  i-  i.         England. 

was   proposed   to   induce    the   directors   to    establish 
branch  banks  in  the  commercial  centres  of  the  provinces,  and  to 
permit  an  extension  of  the  powers  of  the  private  banks,  whose 
tirms  had  hitherto  not  been  permitted  to  consist  of  more  than  six 
partners.    The  same  explanations  were  made  in  the  other  House 
by  the  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer.     A  difficulty  occurred  at 
once  in  regard  to  the  suppression  of  small  notes.     If  a   suppreMj0a 
day  was  fixed  by  law,  after  which  no  more  small  notes  of  small 
should  be  stamped  there  was  evidence  in  the  hands  of 
government  to  show  that  such  an  amount  would  be  stamped  in 
the  interim  as  would  render  the  law  altogether  nugatory.     The 

i  Annual  Register,  1826,  p.  2.  2  Hansard,  xiv.  p.  17. 

VOL.  ii.  27 


418  HISTORY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [BOOK  IL 

government,  therefore,  stopped  the  stamping  process  immediate- 
ly, though  many  bankers  had  paid  for  their  licenses  to  issue 
notes  up  to  the  next  10th  of  October.  Of  course,  the  ministers 
were  called  to  account  for  this  high-handed  proceeding  —  this 
"unconstitutional  exercise  of  power"  —  this  "violation  of  a 
statutory  guaranty."  They  admitted  the  justice  of  these  de- 
scriptive terms ;  acknowledged  that  an  act  of  indemnity  might 
be  required,  and  pleaded,  in  their  defence,  the  urgent  necessity 
of  the  case.  After  a  little  complaint  and  remonstrance,  the  gov- 
ernment heard  no  more  of  the  matter,  —  the  state  of  the  com- 
mercial world  being  such  as  to  make  the  most  vigilant  politicians 
less  scrupulous  than  usual  about  "  statutory  guaranties  "  being 
strictly  observed.  It  was  a  question  of  an  act  like  that  of  blow- 
ing up  a  private  house,  without  leave  asked,  to  stop  a  conflagra- 
tion. Anything  was  better  than  running  the  risk  of  a  deluge  of 
small-note  paper  in  the  year  to  come,  like  that  of  the  year  that 
was  gone.  Lord  Liverpool  and  the  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer 
explained1  that  in  1825  the  amount  of  small  country-note  paper 
had  not  been  less  than  six  millions.  Since  the  crash,  it  had  been 
reduced  to  four  millions ;  the  vacancy  having  been  supplied  by 
coin  ;  and  now  there  was  no  reason  to  expect  that  there  would 
be  any  difficulty  in  replacing  the  other  four  millions  by  coin  ;  a 
measure  most  desirable  for  the  benefit  of  the  poorer  classes,  who, 
as  the  principal  holders  of  small  notes,  were  always  the  first  to 
suffer,  while  the  least  able  to  bear  the  suffering,  from  such  a  cri- 
sis as  had  just  taken  place.  In  some  essential  points  of  the  dis- 
cussion, almost  all  the  members  of  both  Houses  agreed  :  that  the 
present  question  was  in  fact  of  a  metallic  currency  at  all,  as  it 
was  invariably  found  that,  under  an  unrestricted  small-note  cur- 
rency, gold  and  silver  were,  driven  out  of  circulation  by  an  equal 
amount  of  paper,  —  Lancashire,  where  no  small  notes  existed, 
being  the  only  part  of  the  country  which  had  hitherto  had  a 
metallic  circulation  at  all ;  and  the  coin,  which  had  been  issued 
with  great  expense  and  trouble,  being  sent  back  to  London  by 
return  of  the  mail  which  had  carried  it  down ;  that  the  present 
was  the  time  for  the  restriction  to  be  made,  —  the  work  being,  as 
Mr.  Brougham  observed,  already  half  done  by  the  panic  and 
crash ;  and  that  the  present  was  the  moment,  for  another  reason 
—  the  severe  test  which  had  been  just  applied  to  the  stability  of 
the  country  banks  which  had  stood  the  shock,  and  which  could 
therefore  easily  stand  the  gradual  withdrawal  of  the  outstanding 
notes.  The  opposition,  led  by  Mr.  Baring,  numbered  only  39 
votes  against  222 ; 2  and  when  the  opinion  of  the  majority  was 
thus  decisively  declared,  the  minority  abstained  from  further  ob- 
jection. 

l  Hansard,  xiv.  pp.  17,  49.  2  Ibid.  p.  354. 


CHAP.  VIII.]  SCOTCH  BANKS.  419 

Some  needless  difficulty  arose,  from  the  imprudent  conduct  of 
certain  of  the  country  bankers,  who  withdrew  their  small  notes 
from  circulation  too  hastily,  allowing  no  time  for  the  new  metallic 
currency  to  supply  their  place.  In  some  districts  this  created 
great  difficulty  about  carrying  on  the  smaller  transactions  of  com- 
merce. To  meet  it,  an  enactment  was  proposed,  and  passed  by  a 
large  majority,  by  which  the  Bank  of  England  was  enabled  to 
continue  stamping  small  notes  during  the  interval  till  the  10th  of 
October.1  This  liberty  did  not  affect  the  term  fixed  for  the  cir- 
culation of  small  notes ;  and  the  enlarged  power  of  preparation 
of  notes  for  that  term  was  sure  not  to  be  abused  ;  for  the  Bank  of 
England  found  its  small-note  circulation  a  pure  inconvenience 
The  purpose  of  the  enactment  was  merely  to  enable  the  Bank  to 
furnish  a  small  currency  in  particular  districts,  where  it  might  be 
urgently  wanted  during  the  period  of  change,  when  the  country 
bankers  were  drawing  in  their  11.  and  2/.  notes. 

One  of  the  strangest  arguments  brought  against  the  new  meas- 
ures was  by  Lord  Carnarvon  in  the  Upper  House.2  He  gravely 
urged,  that  with  a  return  to  a  metallic  currency,  highwaymen 
would  again  come  out  upon  the  roads.  At  a  time  within  his  rec- 
ollection, before  the  common  use  of  small  notes,  "  a  friend  of  his 
had  been  robbed  on  the  highway ;  another  had  been  wounded  by 
a  shot  fired  at  him  by  a  footpad  ;  and  a  third  had  narrowly  escaped 
with  his  life,  by  seizing  the  muzzle  of  the  pistol  which  the  robber 
had  thrust  into  his  carriage,  and  wresting  it  out  of  his  hand." 
This  objection  was  easily  met  by  proofs  of  the  extent  of  thefts, 
even  on  the  high-road,  of  bank-notes  ;  and  of  the  great  amount  of 
the  easy  crime  of  forgery.  Lord  Carnarvon  probably  derived  his 
plea  from  the  celebrated  u  Letters  of  Malachi  Malagrowther,"  as 
Sir  Walter  Scott  chose  to  style  himself.  In  these  letters,  which 
pleaded  against  the  abolition  of  the  small-note  currency  of  Scot- 
land, the  author  drew  pictures  of  the  probable  robberies  of  bank- 
ers' chests  in  the  Highland  glens. 

The  prohibition  of  the  small-note  currency  was  not  made  to 
extend  to  Scotland.  The  banking  system  of  Scotland  scotch 
had  all  along  been  essentially  different  from  that  of  *>*•*>**. 
England.  Its  firms  had  been  under  no  limitation  with  regard  to 
the  number  of  partners  ;  and  banking  was  carried  on  by  large 
companies  of  capitalists,  under  a  system  which  admitted  the  com- 
mercial world  to  a  much  fuller  knowledge  of  the  affairs  of  the 
banks  than  is  thought  of  in  England,  or  would  there  be  compatible 
with  the  practices  of  commerce.  Small  banking  firms  in  Scotland 
must,  therefore,  consist  of  men  known  to  be  wealthy  and  trust- 
worthy ;  and  their  responsibility  in  issuing  small  notes  is  under- 
stood to  be  complete.  During  the  crash  of  1825  and  1826,  not 
I  Ha»sar4,  xiv.  p.  641,  2  Ibid.  p.  135J. 


420  HISTORY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [BOOK  EL 

a  single  Scotch  bank  failed ;  and  there  was,  evidently,  no  need 
to  interfere  with  a  syskm  which  worked  so  well  in  its  own  local- 
ity—  however  inapplicable  it  might  be  elsewhere. 

After  much  negotiation  between  the  government  and  the  Bank 
of  England,  the  further  changes  introduced  into  the  English  bank- 
Branch  *n?  svstem  were  these.  The  Bank  established  branches 
and  joint-  in  many  of  the  large  trading  towns  ;  a  measure  which 
uock  banks,  ^gg  proved  highly  useful.  Banking  firms  might  hence- 
forth include  any  number  of  partners,  except  within  sixty-five 
miles  of  London.  These  changes,  with  the  suppression  of  small 
notes,  would,  it  was  hoped,  obviate  much  of  the  danger  of  in- 
secure banking,  from  which  the  country  had  suffered  so  griev- 
ously. 

As  for  the  relief  that  should  be  given  on  the  instant  to  the 
commercial  world,  the  ministers  were  unwilling  to  authorize  an 
issue  of  exchequer  bills,  becau-e  they  thought  the  remedy  a  fal- 
lacious one  under  the  circumstances  ;  but  they  offered  to  bear  the 
Bank  harmless  through  a  purchase  of  exchequer  bills  to  the 
amount  of  two  millions.  The  Bank  did  not  stir ;  nor  did  it  meet 
favorably  the  government  proposition  that  it  should  make  ad- 
vances on  deposits  of  goods.  But  affaire  pressed ;  times  were 
not  mending ;  the  merchants  of  London  and  the  large  provincial 
towns  were  growing  desperate  ;  the  government  was  called,  even 
in  parliament,  hard  and  cruel.  Something  must  be  done  to 
revive  confidence,  and  bring  out  the  hoarded  gold,  which  was 
above  everything  wanted.  It  was  no  longer  possible  to  refuse 
what  the  general  opinion  required  ;  and  before  February  was  out, 
the  Bank  had  agreed 1  to  make  advances  on  deposits  of  merchants' 
Advances  goods.  A  great  pawning  transaction  was  entered 
on  goods.  upon;  the  advances  of  the  Bank  being  limited  to  three 
millions.  Commissioners  were  appointed  to  conduct  the  business 
in  the  principal  trading  districts.  It  was  presently  found  that 
many  of  these  commissioners  would  have  little  or  nothing  to  do. 
As  soon  as  it  was  found  that  the  money  could  be  had.  it  appeared 
that  little  of  it  would  be  wanted.  Tne  restoration  of  credit  was 
the  thing  required.  On  the  strength  of  this  new  resource,  men 
of  high  commercial  character  began  to  trust  one  another.  The 
example  spread  :  and  in  a  short  time  the  alarm  subsided,  and  fair 
and  prudent  trading  began  to  revive. 

Good  as  were  the  consequences  of  this  arrangement,  the  go\- 
Positionof  eminent  had  the  judgment  and  sympathy  of  the  best 
ministers.  men  jn  jne  country  with  them  in  their  unwillingness 
to  have  recourse  to  it.  The  Prime  Minister  declared  in  his 
place  his  serious  objection  to  inducing  merchants  to  look  any- 
where for  aid  in  commercial  difficulties,  but  to  themselves  and 
i  Annual  Register,  1826,  p.  38- 


CHAP.  VIII.]      POSITION  OF  THE  MINISTERS.  421 

the  banks  of  the  country  ;  and  that  "  nothing  justified  the  inter- 
ference of  the  government  *  iu  mercantile  embarrassments,  unless 
the  distress  was  occasioned  by  some  great  public  calamity  inflicted 
by  the  hand  of  God,  or  some  political  event  of  a  very  extraordi- 
nary nature."  Their  position  was  a  very  hard  one  ;  one  so  hard 
that  it  must  lie  hoped  that  no  government  may  ever  again  be 
made  to  s utter  in  like  manner  by  the  folly  and  cupidity  of  the 
society  they  have  to  govern.  First,  the  ministers  had  to  witness 
large  preparations  for  the  failure  of  their  own  wisest  policy ; 
preparations  with  which  they  had  no  right  or  power  to  interfere. 
Before  the  admission  of  foreign  silks,  thei'e  was  such  a  rage  for 
building  silk-mills,  each  costing  from  10,000/.  to  15,000/.,  that 
many  of  them  stood  still  unroofed  at  the  close  of  the  panic  and 
crash.2  In  1825,  the  population  of  Macclesfield  amounted  to 
about  20,000  ;  and  in  the  newspapers  of  February  of  that  year 
may  be  seen  advertisements  to  "  overseers,  guardians  of  the  poor, 
and  families  desirous  of  settling  in  Macclesfield.  Wanted  imme- 
diately, from  four  to  five  thousand  persons,  from  seven  to  twenty 
years  of  age,  to  be  employed  in  the  throwing  and  manufacturing 
of  silk."  Again:  "Wanted  to  be  built  immediately,  one  thou- 
sand houses."  This  was  only  a  single  example  of  those  specula- 
tions which,  to  use  Mr.  Canning's  words,8  "  at  the  time,  fixed  the 
public  gaze,  and  so  immediately  excited  their  appetency,  as  to 
cover  the  natiua.  in  the  eyes  of  foreign  states,  if  not  with  disgrace, 
at  least  with  ridicule.  The  most  wild  and  incoherent  schemes 
were  started  ;  projects  which  sprang  with  the  dawn,  and  expired 
before  the  setting  of  the  sun,  in  whose  beams  they  glittered  for 
a  few  hours,  and  then  fell ;  a  puff  of  vapor  sent  them  soaring 
towards  the  skies ;  the  puncture  of  a  pin  brought  them  to  the 
earth."  In  the  midst  of  the  intoxication  the  government  uttered 
warnings,  strenuously  and  incessantly,  but  in  vain  ;  and  because 
these  warnings  were  in  vain,  those  who  uttered  them  were  blamed 
for  not  having  put  forth  the  strong  hand  to  restrain  the  madness 
of  the  nation.  "  I  really  do  not  know,  sir,"  declared  Mr.  Can- 
ning,4 "  what  legislative  interference  could  possibly  effect  in  such 
a  case.  I  do  not  know  how  a  measure  could  be  framed,  to  deal 
with  those  speculations  of  unreasoning  avarice,  which  would  not, 
at  the  same  time,  have  borne  so  hard  on  honest  industry  and 
rational  enterprise,  that  it  would  have  been  likely  to  do  more 
harm  than  good.  The  inordinate  appetite  for  gain,  if  left  to  it- 
self, could  not  fail  to  work  its  own  cure,  through  its  own  certain 
disappointment."  And  then,  when  the  meteor  schemes  had  all 
exploded,  and  left  nothing  behind  but  darkness  and  stifling  odors," 
the  sufferers  who  refused  timely  warnings  would  have  it  that  tho 

1  Hansard,  xiv.  p.  871.  2  Huskisson's  Speeches,  ii.  p.  504. 

*  Hansard,  xiv.  p  320.  '  Ibid.  p.  320. 


422  HISTORY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [BOOK  H 

ministers  might  make  the  sun  rise,  and  bring  wholesome  breezes 
if  they  would;  and  taxed  them  Avith  obstinacy  and  hard-hearted- 
ness.  If  they  would  issue  exchequer  bills,  or  do  this  and  that 
which  none  but  a  despotic  government  would  think  of  doing,  all 
might  be  well  in  a  moment.  "  It  is  most  unfair,"  said  Mr.  Can- 
ning,1 "  to  infer  from  any  hesitation  on  the  part  of  government 
to  adopt  any  particular  remedy,  under  such  circumstances,  that 
there  exists,  therefore,  on  their  part,  an  insensibility  to  the  extent 
or  nature  of  the  existing  evil.  For  myself  and  for  my  colleagues, 
I  totally  disdain  to  answer  such  insinuations.  I  impute  to  no 
man  who  now  hears  me,  that  he  is  insensible  ;  but,  sir,  for  others 
to  impute  it  to  those  upon  whom,  every  day  and  every  night,  care 
and  anxiety  are  brought  by  the  consideration  of  those  distresses, 
in  addition  to  the  common  sympathy  in  which  they  share  as  men, 
is  to  impute  to  them,  not  only  a  want  of  feeling,  but  a  want  of 
sense,  which  would  unfit  them,  not  merely  for  the  situations 
which  they  fill  in  the  government  of  the  country,  but  to  appear 
here,  in  the  midst  of  those  whom  I  have  the  honor  of  now  ad- 
dressing." 

Such  was  the  share  which  the  government  had  to  endure  of 
Suffering  of  the  pain  of  the  crisis;  the  foreboding  —  the  heavy 
the  period,  heart  in  a  time  of  delirious  joy;  the  haunting  care 
which  cast  its  cold  shadow  by  day,  and  sat  on  the  pillow  at 
night ;  the  inability  to  ward  otf  the  mischief,  and  the  discredit 
of  it  when  it  came;  the  strain  put  upon  their  principles;  and 
the  reproach  cast  upon  their  steadfastness,  —  such  was  their 
share  of  the  suffering  of  the  time.  But  if  they  suffered  more 
than  the  careless,  they  suffered  less  than  the  guilty.  There  were 
many  hundreds,  many  thousands  in  the  country  who  might  well 
envy  them  their  very  cares.  Perhaps  even  they,  with  all  their 
means  of  knowledge,  amidst  all  the  press  of  evil  tidings  which 
rushed  in  from  day  to  day,  could  not  be  so  well  aware  as  those  in 
an  humbler  station  of  the  worst  miseries  of  the  time.  They  had 
the  gazette  under  their  eyes,  and  the  clamor  of  the  commercial 
world  in  their  ears ;  they  had  before  them  the  diminishing  re- 
turns of  the  taxes,  and  the  increasing  returns  of  pauperism  ;  but 
they  were  saved  the  anguish  of  witnessing  the  individual  traits 
which  most  wring  the  heart  in  a  season  of  national  calamity.  It 
is  not  he  who  sees  from  afar  the  cloud  of  dust  from  an  earth- 
quake, and  who  faintly  hears  the  murmur  of  contused  sounds, 
and  who  knows  that  so  many  churches,  and  so  m  my  dwellings, 
and  even  so  many  people,  have  perished,  that  c*n  feel  the  deepest 
horror  of  the  scene.  It  is  rather  he  who,  in  some  narrow  street, 
meets  the  spectacle  of  the  writhing  of  a  crushed  sufferer  here,  a 
childless  mother  there,  a  surviving  lover,  a  forlorn  infant  wailing 
i  Hansard,  xiv.  p.  725. 


CHAP.  VIIL]  SUFFEKING  OF  THE  TIME.  423 

among  ruins  and  flames,  who  has  the  best  understanding  of  what 
has  befallen.  And  so  it  was  with  this  social  convulsion  in  England. 
There  are  some  now  of  the  most  comfortable  middle-class  order, 
who  cannot  think  of  that  year  without  bitter  pain.  They  saw 
many  parents  grow  white-haired  in  a  week's  time ;  lovers  parted 
on  the  eve  of  marriage  ;  light-hearted  girls  sent  forth  from  the 
shelter  of  home,  to  learn  to  endure  the  destiny  of  the  governess 
or  the  sempstress  ;  governesses,  too  old  for  a  new  station,  going 
actually  into  the  workhouse  ;  rural  gentry  quitting  their  lands ; 
and  whole  families  relinquishing  every  prospect  in  life,  and  stand- 
ing as  bare  under  the  storm  as  Lear  and  his  strange  comrades 
on  the  heath.  They  saw  something  even  worse  than  all  this. 
They  saw  the  ties  of  family  honor  and  harmony  snapped  by  the 
strain  of  cupidity  first,  and  discontent  afterwards,  and  the  mem- 
bers falling  off'  from  one  another  as  enemies.  They  saw  the 
hope  of  the  innocent,  the  faith  of  the  pious,  the  charity  of  the 
generous,  the  integrity  of  the  trusted,  gyving  way.  They  saw 
the  most  guilty  rewarded,  and  the  most  virtuous  involved  as 
deeply  as  any  in  the  retribution.  But  it  would  be  an  endless 
task  to  adduce  the  sorrows  of  that  time ;  nor  can  their  issue  ever 
be  recognized.  After  a  weary  and  dreary  season  of  suspense, 
affairs  began  to  mend ;  but  so  heavily,  that  even  the  King's 
speech,  which  is  understood  to  make  the  best  of  everything  at  all 
times,  declared,  in  the  next  November,1  that  the  depression  had 
abated  more  slowly  than  Mis  Majesty  had  thought  himself  war- 
ranted in  anticipating.  Still,  the  depression  did  pass  away.  Our 
ships  were  once  more  abroad  upon  the  sea  ;  and  the  clack  of  the 
loom  and  the  roar  of  the  forge  were  again  heard  in  our  towns. 
But  the  heart-wounds  of  such  a  time  can  no  more  be  healed  than 
the  whitened  hair  can  resume  its  color.  The  impoverished  might 
grow  rich,  and  many  a  laden  mind  might  throw  off  its  cares ; 
but  the  estranged  could  not  be  reunited ;  the  dishonored  could 
not  be  reinstated ;  the  grave  could  not  give  back  the  broken- 
hearted, nor  prosperity  reassure  some  who  had  suffered  too  fear- 
fully. To  a  few  who  were  strong  enough,  this  adversity  may, 
like  other  discipline,  have  ministered  increased  strength  ;  "  to 
him  that  hath  much  shall  more  be  given ; "  but  the  strong  are 
everywhere  the  few  :  and  in  this  case  their  lot  is  only  the  single 
ray  in  the  dark  place  —  the  strong  tower  which  outstood  the 
earthquake. 

Men  are  wont  to  talk  glibly  of  commercial  crises  when  they  are 
past,  in  a  tone  quite  different  from  that  in  which  they  speak  of 
a  pestilence  or  a  famine.  In  this  case,  it  can  hardly  be  so —  the 
calamity  was  so  fearful,  the  folly  so  humbling,  and  the  guilt  now 
BO  clear.  There  is  a  certain  Scripture  text  about  the  temptations 
1  Hansard,  xvi.  p.  11. 


424  HISTORY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [Boox  II. 

and  destruction  of  those  "  that  would  be  rich,"  which  must  have 
haunted  many  a  man's  mind,  and  wrung  in  his  ears  like  a  judi- 
cial sentence,  after  the  season  of  passionate  cupidity  was  past.  To 
the  more  disengaged  mind  of  the  guiltless  observer,  the  whole 
crisis  must  have  been  a  significant  text,  from  which  he  could 
preach  eloquently  the  great  truth,  how  little  governments  can  do 
for  the  welfare  of  nations,  in  the  absence  or  abeyance  of  individ- 
ual virtue  and  intelligence  ;  how  necessary  it  is  that  men  should 
rule  their  own  spirits,  before  they  can  enjoy  that,  social  welfare 
which  a  wise  government  may  help  to  secure,  but  can  never  con- 
fer. 


CJIAP.  IX.]  EIOTS.  425 


CHAPTER    IX. 

THE  history  of  1825  and  1826  has  shown  us  the  state  of 
English  capitalists ;  the  rapacity  and  ignorance  of  some,  and  the 
consequent  sufferings  of  all.  How  was  it  with  the  laborers, 
among  whom  it  is  natural  to  look  for  a  worse  cupidity,  a  deeper 
ignorance,  and  a  fiercer  suffering  ? 

From  the  time  when  the  false  prosperity  of  the  country  began 
to  decline,  there  was  much  rioting.  The  first  impulse 
of  sufferers  too  ignorant  to  know  the  causes  of  their 
suffering,  is  to  rebel  against  the  order  of  things  under  which 
their  misery  takes  place.  The  first  serious  rioting  was  at  Sun- 
derland,  in  August,  1825,  just  after  the  tide  of  pros-  atsunder- 
perity  was  seen  to  have  turned.  The  association  of  landi 
seamen,  who  were  not  on  good-terms  with  the  ship-owners,  saw 
a  collier  quietly  leaving  the  port,  manned  by  strangers,  and  went 
out  to  attack  the  vessel.  The  principal  ship-owners,  who  had 
been  sworn  in  as  special  constables,  put  off  after  them,  but  could 
make  little  resistance  against  overwhelming  numbers  ;  the  rioters 
being  at  least  four  hundred.  The  ship-owners,  and  all  the  ob- 
noxious crew,  except  the  master  and  the  mate,  were  thrown  into 
the  sea,  whence  they  were  picked  up  in  no  condition  for  further 
fight.  A  party  of  dragoons  was  brought  up  ;  the  Riot  Act  was 
read  ;  but  on  the  opposite  side  of  the  river  from  that  where  the 
proceedings  of  the  rioters  had  collected  a  mob  of  men,  women, 
and  children.  Some  stones  were  thrown  from  the  midst  of  this 
mob,  who  had  not  heard  the  reading  of  the  Riot  Act.  The  sol- 
diers fired,  and  five  persons  were  killed ;  one  of  whom  was  a 
carpenter,  at  work  on  his  stage,  and  another  a  laborer,  returning 
from  the  field.  The  funeral  of  the  victims  was  solemn,  with 
banners  and  flags,  and  a  band  of  singers ; '  and  for  mourners, 
twelve  hundred  seamen,  with  each  a  crape  round  the  left  arm, 
walking  hand  in  hand,  two  and  two.  The  circumstances  had, 
however,  been  too  fatal  for  the  courage  of  the  men ;  and  they 
yielded  the  points  for  which  they  had  struck. 

A  more  successful  stand  against  authority  and  law  was  made 
in  the  Isle  of  Man  the  next  November,  when  the  isl-  intheisie 
and  was  kept  in  a  state  of  uproar  for  a  week,  by  the  ofM»n- 
i  Annual  Register,  1825.    Chron.  p.  119. 


426  HISTORY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [BOOK  H. 

resistance  of  the  poor  to  the  collection  of  the  tithe  of  potatoes  by 
the  proctors  of  the  bishop.  The  people  overturned  the  laden 
carts,  stood  guard  over  the  potatoes,  pursued  the  bishop's  proc- 
tors, rescued  such  of  their  own  body  as  were  apprehended,  defied 
the  constables,  evaded  the  magistrates  and  military,  and  obtained 
from  the  bishop,  at  the  end  of  a  week,  the  following  written  dec- 
laration, which  was  delivered  by  his  lordship  himself  into  the 
hands  of  a  deputation  from  the  malcontents  : 1  "  Whereas  it  has 
been  reported  by  evil-minded  persons,  that  a  tithe  of  potatoes 
will  be  taken  from  the  poor  tenants  of  this  island,  and  from  per- 
sons little  able  to  pay  the  same  —  they  are  hereby  assured  that 
such  tithe  will  not  be  demanded  from  them,  either  this  year  or  at 
any  future  time."  These  poor  people  needed  only  the  assurance 
that  (heir  potatoes  should  not  be  taken  from  their  children  to  be 
given  to  the  church  ;  and  the  bishop  saw  that  it  would  be  little  for 
the  advantage  of  religion  to  give  the  food  of  the  poor  to  the  church. 
So  there  was  grace  on  the  one  side,  and  cheering  on  the  other ; 
and  the  affair  was  over  for  the  time. 

By  the  spring  of  the  next  year,  1826,  there  was  such  fearful 
Riots  in  Lan-  suffering  among  the  poor  of  the  manufacturing  dis- 
cashire.  tricts,  that  no  one  could  wonder  much  at  the  spirit  of 
violence  which  broke  out  in  Lancashire.  The  people  rose  up 
against  the  power-looms,  which  they  believed  to  be  the  cause  of 
their  distress  ;  and  in  one  day,  every  power-loom  in  Blackburn, 
and  within  six  miles  of  it,  was  destroyed.2  It  is  worthy  of  note, 
that  the  rioters  took  the  utmost  care  not  to  injure  any  spinning 
machinery.  Time  was  when  the  hand-spinners  were  as  much  ex- 
asperated against  spinning-jennies  as  the  hand-loom  weavers  now 
•were  against  power-looms.  They  had  discovered  the  value  of 
the  spinning  machinery  by  this  time,  but  could  not  be  persuaded 
that  they  should  ever  derive  any  benefit  from  weaving  machinery. 
It  was  a  mournful  spectacle  in  Lancashire,  that  week  in  April; 
the  mob  going  from  town  to  town,  from  factory  to  factory ; 
snatching  their  food  from  bakers'  shops  and  public  -  houses ; 
throwing  stones  at  the  soldiers,  and  being  shot  down,  rather  than 
give  up  their  object,  believing  sincerely  that  their  very  lives  de- 
pended on  the  destruction  of  these  looms  ;  leaping  from  two-story 
windows  to  escape  the  soldiery,  after  having  cut  up  every  web, 
and  hewn  down  every  beam  and  stick  within ;  striking  at  their 
pursuers  with  table-knives  made  into  pikes  ;  with  scythes  and 
sledge-hammers ;  swimming  canals,  hiding  in  woods,  parading  the 
streets  of  towns,  to  the  number  of  10,000  at  a  time,  frightening 
the  night  with  cries  of  hunger,  and  yells  of  rage,  —  all  this  was  ter- 
rible ;  but  it  came  at  the  end  of  many  months  of  such  sore  distress 
as  rouses  the  fiercest  passions  of  men.  On  the  first  day,  three  per- 

l  Annual  Register,  1825.    Chron.  p.  158.  2  ibid.  1826.    Chron.  p.  64. 


CHAP.  IX.]     RIOTS  IN  MANUFACTURING  TOWNS.  427 

sons  were  killed  by  the  soldiers  ;  on  another  day,  nine ;  here,  it 
might  be  seen  that  wounded  men  were  carried  away  across  the 
fields  ;  there,  the  street  was  found,  when  emptied,  to  be  "  much 
stained  with  blood."  Here,  a  poor  creature  was  loading  his  rusty 
gun  with  marbles,  while  the  manufacturers  were  bringing  up  can- 
non to  plant  round  their  factories ;  there,  haggard  men  were  set- 
ting buildings  on  fire,  and  snatching  buckets  from  the  hands  of 
those  who  would  have  supplied  water  to  the  engines.  Between 
Monday  morning  and  Saturday  night,1  a  thousand  power-looms 
were  destroyed.  The  immediate  money-value  of  this  machinery 
was  30,000/. ;  but  it  had  a  greater  value  as  the  only  means  of 
bread  of  a  large  number  of  people  who  were  now  left  idle  and 
destitute. 

In  the  first  week   in    May,  the  Manchester   operatives   rose 
again;    and    then    ihe    Bradford  wool  -  combers    and  Riots  in 
weavers  met  to  consider2  "the  present  unparalleled  Yorkshire; 
distress  and  famishing  condition  of  the  operatives,"  and  could 
think  of  no  way  of  mending  it  but  by  breaking  windows.     There 
were   inquests    first,  and    trials   afterwards ;  but  no  relief.     In 
Lanarkshire,    the    noblemen,    magistracy,    and    gentry   of    the 
county,    assembled  to    consult  upon  the   wretched  and  helpless 
state  of  the  Glasgow  operatives,  knew  no  better  than  to  throw 
the    blame   on    the    invention  of  machinery.8     In    Dublin,   the 
starving  silk-weavers  formed  in  procession,  to  exhibit  their  hun- 
ger in  the  streets.     Their  idea  of  a  remedy  was,  that  the  public 
subscription  raised  by  them  should  be  applied  in  the  purchase 
of  the  manufacturers'  stocks  ;  and  thus,  when  the  shelves  were 
cleared,  they  thought  a  new  demand  must  at  once  ensue.     At 
Trowbridge,  the    people  were  dismayed  at  a  rise  in   at  Trow- 
the  price  of  potatoes  in  May,4  and  would  have  it  that  M<*8e ; 
the  gardeners  and  greengrocers  were  hoarding  the  potatoes.     On 
market-day,  they   attacked  the  gardeners'    stalls  so  vigorously, 
that  by  eleven  o'clock  not  a  vegetable  was  left  in  the  place.     The 
frightened   butchers    removed  —  the    soldiers  carne  —  window- 
breaking   went  on  all  night  —  a  prisoner  was  released    by    un- 
roofing the  prison,  and  two  more  were  sent  off  to  Salisbury  tor 
trial  at  the  assize*.     At  Carlisle,  the  starving  weavers    atCarlisle. 
mobbed  one  of  the  candidates  for  the  city,  clamoring 
for  a    repeal  of  the  corn  -  laws  and  radical  reform ;  and  a  riot 
ensued,5  in  which  a  woman  standing  at  her  own  do>»r,  with  a  key 
in  her  hand,  and  a  little  girl  in  the  street,  were  shot  through  the 
head.     The    inquests  in  these  cases  were  not  ceremonies  tending 
to   tranquillize    the    exasperated.       In    the    iron    dis-   in  suirora- 
tricts  there    were    strikes   and    readings  of  the    Riot   8hire- 

1  Annual  Register,  1826.     Chron.  p.  68.  2  Ibid.  Chron.  p.  72. 

3  Ibid.  p.  49.  *  Ibid.     Chron.  p.  76.  «  Ibid.  Chron.  p.  Ui. 


428  HISTORY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [BOOK  IL 

Act,  and  a  scouring  of  the  country  by  soldiery.  In  Bethnal 
Green,  the  thieves  of  the  metropolis  congregated,  and  robbed 
everybody  in  the  name  of  the  distressed  weavers.  In  Norwich, 
Blots  in  the  unemployed  weavers,  who  would  not  take  work 
Norwich.  af  t\l(i  Wages  which  the  manufactures  could  afford, 
kept  watch  at  the  city  gates  for  goods  brought  in  from  the 
country.  They  destroyed  one  cart-load  in  the  street,  and  threw 
the  cart  into  the  river;  broke  the  manufacturers'  windows; 
cooped  in  a  public-house  three  men  from  the  country  who  had 
silk  canes  about  them  ;  and  kept  the  magistracy  busy  and  alarmed 
for  some  weeks.  About  12,000  weavers  in  Norwich  were  then 
unemployed,  and  the  whole  city  in  a  state  of  depression,  the 
more  harassing  from  its  contrast  with  the  activity  and  higli  hope 
of  the  preceding  year. 

While  these  scenes  of  disorder  and  wretchedness  were  wit- 
nessed from  end  to  end  of  the  kingdom,  the  ministers  adhered 
to  the  principle  on  which  they  had  refused  to  issue  exchequer 
bills,  and  declined  to  purchase  popularity  by  the  offer  of  any  ap- 
parent assistance,  while  convinced  that  they  could  afford  none 
that  was  real  and  effectual.  They  were  confident  that  the  mis- 
chief must  work  its  own  cure,  and  could  not  be  cured  in  any 
other  way.  Yet,  something  might  be  done  to  relieve  the  despair 
of  the  hungering,  who  saw  large  stores  of  wheat  laid  up  in  bond 
in  Liverpool,  Hull,  and  other  ports,  while  the  prospects  of  the 
harvest  were  very  doubtful,  and  Parliament  was  about  to  be 
dissolved ;  leaving  the  people  without  advocacy  to  the  care  of 
the  government  for  an  interval  of  months  before  the  new  par- 
liament could  assemble."  The  ministers  and  parliament  had 
agreed,  early  in  the  session,  that  it  would  be  improper  to  bring 
forward  the  whole  question  of  the  corn-laws  while  the  country 
was  in  a  slate  of  high  excitement,  and  on  the  eve  of  a  general 
Letting  out  election.  But  it  was  thought  by  ministers  that  the 
bondedcom.  300,000  quarters  of  corn  in  bond  in  the  ports  *  might 
be  let  out  without  tampering  with  the  great  question,  and  with- 
out dping  any  appreciable  injury  to  the  agricultural  interest; 
while  the  manufacturers  declared  that  even  the  small  imports  of 
foreign  corn  which  would  follow  upon  such  a  measure  would 
afford  just  the  stimulus  to  their  business  that  was  wanted.  They 
were  ready  to  resume  business  if  they  could  obtain  any  returns 
from  abroad  of  the  only  commodity  which  their  foreign  cu-tomers 
could  at  present  send  with  advantage.  It  was  decided,  after 
eager  and  protracted  discussions,  that  the  people  should  have 
the  prospect  of  a  supply  of  food,  under  arrangements  which  met 
the  objections  of  both  the  parties  who  were  constantly  opposed 
to  each  other  on  all  branches  of  the  question  of  the  corn-laws. 
1  Hansard,  xv.  p.  795. 


CHAP.  IX.]  ALARM  OF  SCARCITY.  429 

The  manufacturers  were  to  be  gratified  by  the  letting  out  of 
bond  of  the  300,000  quarters  already  in  the  ports;  opening  the 
and  the  agricultural  ii.terest  obtained  the  point,  that  i'orts 
no  prices  and  amounts  of  duty  should  be  fixed  in  relation  to 
the  further  supply  of  500,000  quarters  winch  the  ministers 
were  authorized  to  import,  if  necessary,  within  the  space  of 
two  months.  Phe  responsibility  in  regard  to  the  prices  and 
duties  was  thrown  wholly  upon  the  ministers  by  the  agricultu- 
rists, lest  any  fixing  of  these  l>y  parliament  should  be  made  a  pre- 
cedent in  any  future'  action  for  the  repeal  of  the  corn-laws.  This 
period  of  two  months  was  short  ;  and  the  amount  of  500,000 
quarters  was  less  than  ha'f  of  the  largest  previous  importa- 
tion ;  so  that  the  arrangement  was  not  so  formidable  but  that 
the  landed  interest  were  brought  to  agree  to  it,  under  the  ex- 
treme pressure  of  the  times,  while  the  manufac:urers  were 
thankful  for  even  th's  slight  relaxation  of  the  laws  to  which  they 
were  willing  to  ascribe  almost  the  whole  of  their  distresses.  The 
opposition  to  botli  bills  was  strong  in  the  House  of  Lords;  but 
the  Premier  made  an  earnest  appeal  to  them  in  view  of  a  possi- 
ble scarcity  of  food  during  the  recess,1  following  upon  all  the 
recent  disasters  which  had  afflicted  the  country  ;  and  at  last  both 
bills  passed  their  Lordsh'ps'  Mouse  on  the  26th  of  M;iy. 

The  object  of  the  ministers,  real  and  avowed,  in  urging  these 
bills,  was  to  obtain  a  constitutional  permission  to  do  that  which 
they  nvght  otherwise  be  compelled  to  do  without  authority,  and 
on  the  chance  of  procuring  indemnity  when  the  new  parliament 
should  meet.  They  foresaw  that  they  should  be  compelled  to 
open  the  ports,  during  the  recess,  whether  they  obtained  leave 
beforehand  or  not ;  and  of  course  they  were  extremely  anxious 
for  such  authorization.  Hut,  after  all,  it  did  not  answer  their 
purpose.  The  lioi  summer  of  1826  is  well  remembered.  It  was 
not  very  unfavorable  to  wheat,  of  which  there  was  Alarm  of 
about  an  average  crop.  But  the  barley  crop  was  far  ^mity. 
below  the  average;  and  at  one  time  it  appeared  as  if  there 
would  be  no  oats  or  pulse  at  all.  Oats  are  generally  highest  in 
June,  when  the  preceding  year's  crop  is  coming  to  an  end.  This 
year,  oa's  were  22s.  lid.  in  the  middle  of  June;'  and  the  price 
went  on  rising,  instead  of  falling,  though  July  and  August,  1 11, 
on  the  1st  of  September,  it  had  risen  to  '60s.  There  was  so 
little  grass,  that  the  cattle  were  fed  on  dry  fodder  on  the  richest 
meadow-lands  in  England,  which  were  brown  and  burnt  as  if  a 
fire  had  passed  over  them.  Tlie  deer  in  noblemen's  parks  died 
of  drought;  ponds  and  reservoirs  were  shrank  to  muddy  pools; 
hard-working  people  sat  up  all  night  to  watrh  the  springs  — 
some  to  carry  home  drink  to  their  children  —  o  hers  10  have  a 
1  Hansard,  xv.  p.  369.  2  Annual  Register,  1826,  p.  173. 


430  HISTOKY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [BOCK  II. 

commodity  of  cold  water  to  sell  in  the  morning.  In  some  high- 
lying  towns,  the  richest  people  made  presents  to  one  another  of 
little  pitchers  of  fresh  water;  and  the  consumption  of  beer  in- 
creased much  among  those  who  were  disgusted  with  the  warm 
and  stagnant  water  yielded  by  the  brooks  when  the  wells  were 
all  dry.  All  the  accounts  from  (he  north  of  Europe  told  of  a 
rise  in  the  price  of  oats  and  pulse,  like  that  at  home ;  and  this 
increased  the  alarm.  By  the  1st  of  September,  the  importation 
price  was  passed ;  but  before  the  ports  could  be  opened,  the 
average  must  he  struck  of  the  price  above  the  importation 
price ;  and  the  first  average  would  not  be  struck  till  the  loth  of 
November.  The  ministers  decided  not  to  wait  for  the  quarterly 
average,  but  to  issue  an  order  in  council  at  once  for  the  admission 
of  oats,  rye,  beans,  and  pease.  What  was  in  bond  was  brought 
into  market  immediately ; 1  and  the  fresh  imports  were  subjected 
to  additional  duties,  to  be  confirmed  by  parliament  when  it 
should  meet.  Thus,  after  all,  ministers  were  reduced  to  forestall 
the  action  of  parliament,  and  to  seek  an  act  of  indemnity  for 
themselves.  Such  a  necessity  was  not  without  its  good  results. 
It  tended,  like  every  perplexity  and  irregularity  of  the  kind,  to 
disgust  sensible  penple  with  that  system  of  restriction  on  food 
which  was  to  be  put  an  end  to  by  a  member  of  the  administra- 
tion of  that  time. 

The  miserable  are  always  restless.  Hunger  roams  from  land  to 
land,  as  pain  tosses  on  the  bed  it  cannot  leave.  The 
famished  and  cold  cannot  sit  still  on  the  bare  ground 
while  there  is  life  within  them,  and  a  capacity  of  hope  which 
points  to  food  and  warmth  which  may  be  had  elsewhere.  The 
poor  Irish,  with  their  wis.ful  looks  and  their  tatters,  are  poured 
out  upon  the  coasts  of  England  and  Scotland  every  year ;  and 
when  they  are  too  many  for  the  existing  work  and  food,  or  when 
the  work  and  food  fall  short  from  other  causes,  the  grave  and 
decent  poor  of  England  and  Scotland  wander  away  too,  shipping 
themselves  off  westwards,  or  to  our  furthest  settlements  in  the 
east.  The  subject  of  emigration  must,  sooner  or  later,  become 
one  of  interest  and  importance  to  every  civilized  state ;  and 
soonest  to  an  insular  kingdom.  It  may  be  theoretically  a  ques- 
tion whether,  if  the  English  nation  had  been  altogether  wise  — 
had  assumed  the  conduct  of  its  own  civilization,  instead  of  being 
the  subject,  and  in  some  sense  the  victim,  of  its  own  civilization 
—  the  time  would  have  yet  arrived  for  sending  abroad  any  of  its 
people.  It  may  be  a  question  whether,  if  we  were  all  wise  and 
all  of  one  mind  about  social  affairs,  there  is  not  enough  for  every 
one  to  do  and  to  enjoy  on  his  native  soil.  This  is  a  theoretical 
question  now,  which  may  become  a  practical  one  any  day  ;  and 
1  Annual  Register,  1826,  p.  174. 


CHAP.  IX.l  THE   COLONIAL  OFFICE.  431 

the  sooner  the  better.  But  it  has,  for  a  course  of  years  now, 
been  a  prominent  question  how  best  to  arrange  matters  for  the 
needy  among  our  people,  who  will  and  mu-t  roam,  because  they 
have  no  food  for  their  little  ones,  and  no  home  for  their  own 
hearts.  The  restlessness  which  forces  upon  us  the  question  of 
emigration  is  of  course  greatest  in  seasons  of  adversity  ;  and  in 
the  adversity  of  the  year  1826  it  was  fierce  enough  to  originate 
what  may  prove  to  be  an  important  period  in  our  national  history. 

In  182.),1  it  was  announced  to  the  country  that  the  business 
of  the  colonial  office  had  so  increased  of  late  years,  colonial 
that  it  had  become  necessary  to  have  an  additional  offlce- 
Under  Secretary  of  State.  Mr.  R.  Wilmot  Hortonwas  the  exist- 
ing Umler-Secretary  ;  and  Mr.  R.  W.  Hay  was  now  appointed  in 
addition.  It  may  be  well  that  a  future  time  should  see  what 
amount  of  business  was  apportioned  to  our  colonial  secretaries  in 
1825,  when  emigration,  in  the  modern  import  of  the  word,  first 
began  seriously  to  engage  th«  atteniion  of  society.  It  is  still 
our  way  to  approve  of  our  colonial  minister  as  we  approve  of 
ministers  for  home  offices,  on  account  of  his  general  character 
and  qualifications,  without  much  regard  to  his  capacity  for  a 
function  requiring  a  special  and  elaborate  training.  It  is  still 
our  way  to  permit  our  colonial  minister  to  go  out  and  come  in  at 
short  intervals,  as  if  the  stability  of  the  administration  were  not 
of  the  highest  importance,  when  his  administration  extends  over 
various  and  distant  countries.  It  is  still  too  probable  that  a  co- 
lonial minister's  first  business  is  to  shut  himself  up  in  his  study, 
and  find  out  on  the  globe  where  the  territories  lie  which  he  has 
to  set  about  governing.  But  we  are  beginning  to  learn  how 
absurd  it  is  to  expect  the  machinery  of  the  colonial  office  to  do 
the  necessary  work;  to  understand  the  growing  magnitude  of 
the  business  of  colonization,  and  to  be  prepared  for  a  reconstitu- 
tion  and  prodigious  enlargement  of  the  office  which  is  to  super- 
intend it.  When  this  impending  change  is  made,  men  will  look 
back  with  astonishment  on  this  list,  furnished  in  1825,  of  the 
colonies  whose  affairs  at  head-quarters  had  to  be  managed  by 
Mr.  Wilmot  Morton  and  Mr.  Hay. 

Mr.  R.  Wilmot  Horton :  Jamaica,  Barbadoes,  St.  Christopher, 
Nevis  and  Toriola,  Antigua  and  Montserrat,  Dominica,  Grenada, 
St.  Lucia,  St.  Vincent,  Tobago,  Trinidad,  Demerara  and  Esse- 
quibo,  Berbice,  Honduras,  Bahamas,  Bermuda,  Lower  Canada, 
Upper  Canada,  Nova  Scotia  and  Cape  Breton,  New  Brunswick, 
Prince  Kdward's  Island,  Newibundland.  Commis-ion  of  Inquiry 
and  Criminal  Justice,  West  Indies  ;  and  Apprenticed  Africans. 

Mr.  Hay:   Gibraltar,   Malta,   loniin  Isle-,  Morocco,  Algiers, 
Tunis,  Tripoli,  Missions  to  the  Interior  of  Africa,  Sierra  Leone, 
i  Annual  Register,  1825.    Chron.  p.  116. 


432  HISTORY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [BOOK  IL 

Gold  Coast,  Cape  of  Good  Hope,  Heligoland,  New  South  "Wales, 
Van  Diemen's  Land,  Ceylon,  Mauritius,  East  Indies.  Commis- 
sion of  Inquiry,  Cape,  Mauritius,  and  Ceylon:  Sierra  Leone. 

The  work  of  assisting  emigration  was  henceforth  to  be  looked 
forward  to  by  the  colonial  office  as  a  part  of  its  business.  Since 
1822,  government  had  given  occasional  aid  to  emigration  to 
Canada ;  and  now  it  heard  on  every  side  of  expectations  from 
individuals  and  societies  that  it  would  assist  in  conveying  the 
needy  to  new  fields  of  labor.  The  land-owners  of  a  Scotch 
county  applied  to  ministers  for  encouragement  to  their  poor  to 
emigrate  ;  ami  the  working  men  formed  themselves  into  societies, 
in  many  parts  of  the  country,  whose  object  was  to  obtain  funds 
for  em  gration  from  rich  neighbors  and  from  the  government. 
Government  was  compelled  to  deliberate  on  this  important  sub- 
ject. It  would  not  do  to  go  on  giving  sums  of  money  here  and 
there,  without  inquiring  what  was  done  with  it.  It  was  not  right 
to  continue  supplying  grants  without  knowing  how  the  former 
schemes  had  issued.  It  was  not  possible  to  keep  at  home  the 
poor  creatures,  rendered  desperate  by  want,  who  were  resolved 
to  try  their  fortunes  abroad;  and  it  was  cruel  to  let  them  go 
wholly  unprepared  and  destitute.  It  became  known,  by  this 
time,  how  piteous  was  the  lot  of  the  emigrant  when  he  found 
himself  among  the  snows  of  Canada,  with  the  remnant  of  his 
family  about  him  —  the  few  whom  hardship  and  fever  and  the 
miseries  of  the  voyage  had  spared  —  and  no  possessions  what- 
ever but  the  axe  on  his  shoulder  and  the  tatters  they  wore.  It 
became  known  how  the  Irish  who  flock  to  the  United  States  are 
naturally  regarded  as  a  nuisance  in  their  ports  ;  and  how  they 
die  in  the  swamps,  d'gging  canals  which  the  Americans  will  not 
work  at,  and  crouching  in  shanties  which  no  American  would 
enter  —  unless  it  were  the  missionary  and  the  priest.  Society 
had  not  yet  awakened  to  the  perception  of  what  emigration 
ought  to  be ;  had  not  yet  admitted  the  conception  of  a  small, 
complete  society,  removed  with  all  needful  appliances  to  a  new 
scene  where  it  would  be  bound  together  as  at  home  by  its 
mutual  wants  and  aids  :  by  its  capital  and  its  labor  ;  its  church, 
its  schools,  its  gradations  of  ranks  and  employments,  and  suffi- 
cient powers  of  self-government.  Such  a  conception  as  this  had 
not  yet  entered  the  mind  of  the  government  or  of  the  nation  ; 
but  all  were  aware  that  the  desperate  and  random  emigration  of 
the  time  was  bad,  and  must  give  place  to  something  better. 

On  the  14th  of  March,  1826,  Mr.  R.  Wilmot  Horton  moved  l 

Emigration     "that  a  select  committee  be  appointed  to  inquire  into 

committee,      the  expediency  of  encouraging  emigration  from    the 

United  Kingdom."     He  detailed  the  circumstances  of  the  exper- 

1  Hausard,  xiv.  p.  1360. 


CHAP.  IX.]  EMIGRATION  COMMITTEE.  433 

iments  of  the  years  1823  and  1825,  when,  first,  2C8  persons  emi- 
grated from  Ireland  to  Canada  at  the  expense  of  22/.  each ;  and 
next.  2024  persons  followed  at  the  expense  of  20/.  each.  It  had 
never  been  the  intention  of  government  to  go  on  making  grants 
for  the  removal  of  paupers  in  this  mode ;  but  it  was  thought  that 
the  issue  of  these  h'rst  attempts  was  sufficiently  favorable  to  in- 
dicate further  inquiry  and  consideration.  As  the  scheme  was 
advocated  on  the  ground  of  its  being  a  successful  method  of 
removing  paupers,  it  was  opposed  as  an  expensive  and  fruitless 
remedy  for  pauperism,  as  the  numbers  removed  could  never  per- 
ceptibly reduce  the  superabundance  of  labor  at  home.  The  wider 
considerations  of  the  benefits  of  calling  new  regions  into  fertility, 
and  of  creating  new  markets,  and  thus  feeding  and  employing 
many  who  remained  behind ;  the  considerations  of  the  proper 
ages  of  those  who  were  to  go  ;  of  their  mutual  apportionment  and 
cooperation  as  capitalists  and  laborers  ;  of  the  means  of  making 
emigration  presently  self-supporting  and  expansive  —  these  points 
were  not  yet  discussed,  because  they  were  not  yet  thought  of. 
The  great  subject  which  was  soon  to  become  a  science  was  as 
yet  treated  superficially,  partially,  and  empirically.  Hut  a  begin- 
ning was  made.  The  committee  asked  for  was  appointed  ;  and 
it  presented  its  report  and  evidence  before  the  dissolution  of  par- 
liament,1 with  a  recommendation  that  the  subject  should  be  pur- 
sued without  loss  of  time. 

It  was  a  disastrous  year,  this  year  1826 ;  but  if  we  have  seen 
what  miseries  marked  its  progress,  we  have  witnessed,  too,  the 
birth  of  a  great  redeeming  blessing.  It  is  possible  that  from  the 
woes  and  the  terror  and  the  clamor  of  that  fearful  season  may 
have  sprung  the  fertilization  and  peopling  of  vast  new  regions 
abroad,  and  the  redemption  of  future  generations  at  home. 

i  Hansard,  xvi.  p.  231. 
VOL.  it.  28 


434  HISTORY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [BOOK  IL 


CHAPTER  X. 

THE  year  1825  was  marked  by  nothing  more  conspicuously 
Catholic  than  by  a  great  change  in  the  aspect  and  conduct  of 
question.  the  Catholic  question.  In  a  preceding  page  of  this 
History,  a  promise  was  given  of  a  brief  narrative  of  this  great 
question ;  and  here,  at  the  beginning  of  its  final  stage,  we  seem  to 
be  at  the  right  point  for  a  rapid  review  of  its  history. 

The  difficulty  of  most  or  all  perilous  political  questions  lies  in 
the  relation  they  bear  to  the  long  distant  past ;  a  past  which  did 
not  involve  social  principles  that  have  since  become  of  primary 
importance,  and  by  whose  rule  the  matter  must  be  finally  dis- 
posed of.  For  long  before  the  present  date,  there  had  been  an 
incessant  and  unmanageable  confusion,  in  the  general  mind  of 
the  anti-Catholic  party,  between  the  religious  and  political  mis- 
chiefs of  admitting  the  Catholics  to  an  equality  of  civil  rights 
with  the  Protestants ;  and  this  confusion  itself  was  modern,  com- 
pared with  the  sufferings  of  the  Catholics.  This  was  because  the 
sufferings  of  the  Catholics  began  in  an  age  when  there  was  no 
distinction  between  civil  and  religious  rights.  When  the  dis- 
tinction rose  into  recognition,  the  Romanists  were  actively  per- 
secuted, sometimes  on  the  religious,  and  sometimes  on  the  political 
ground ;  and  when  the  persecution  became  negative,  and  there- 
fore confined  to  the  political  ground,  their  enemies  had  still  not 
arrived  at  any  clearness  of  thought,  or  any  common  agreement, 
as  to  the  basis  of  their  opposition  to  the  Catholic  claims.  This 
is  illustrated  by  the  whole  course  of  the  history  of  those  claims. 

The  Reformation  is,  of  course,  the  point  from  which  the  sepa- 
Keviewof  rate  S*or7  °f  tne  Catholic  body  must  date.  When 
theque»-_  Henry  V III.,  by  his  emissaries,  demolished  the  holy 
Bon;  1535.  snrjne  of  St.  Kieran,  and  turned  out  its  relics  into  the 
street,  and  burned  the  costly  crosier  of  St.  Patrick,  he  did  not 
persecute  the  Irish  Catholics  as  Irish,  but  as  Catholics ;  but  his 
acts  had  the  immediate  effect  of  uniting  in  a  general  hostility  to 
England  the  chiefs  and  tribes  who  were  before  incessantly  at  feud 
with  each  other.  Nobody  then  thought  of  the  distinction  which 
grew  up  in  a  subsequent  age.  There  was  so  little  call  for  a 
religious  reformation  in  Ireland,  that  we  have  it  on  good  author- 


CHAP.  X.]  ,  REVIEW  OF  THE   CATHOLIC  QUESTION.        435 

ity  that  there  were  not  sixty  Protestants  in  the  island  when 
Elizabeth  became  Queen.  During  her  "  vigorous  rule  "  in  Ire- 
land, she  and  her  ministers  made  no  nice  distinctions  between  her 
functions  of  head  of  the  Church  and  head  of  the  State,  in  the 
penal  laws  decreed  against  the  Irish  Catholics,  and  the  legalized 
force  by  which  she  put  down  the  Irish  malcontents.  In  spite  of 
the  talk  of  the  reformed  religion  in  both  countries,  and  the  laws 
against  the  exercise  of  the  Catholic  religion,  the  conflicting  par- 
ties were  evidently  full  of  political  matters,  and  not  of  religious. 
The  English  government  employed  Catholic  officials  in  the  mo-t 
important  and  confidential  services  in  Ireland;  even,  if  they  be- 
longed to  the  Pale,  in  repelling  the  Spanish  invasions  which  took 
place  on  account  of  her  anti-Catholic  laws  and  policy.  The  Cath- 
olics of  the  Pale  fought  against  those  out  of  the  Pale  ;  and  in  the 
reign  of  James  I.,  as  a  fierce  Catholic,  O'Sullivan,  tells  us,  "  the 
eyes  even  of  the  English  Irish  "  — the  Catholics  of  the  Pale  — 
"  were  opened,  and  they  cursed  their  former  folly  for  helping  the 
heretic."  Elizabeth's  wars  were  waged  against  the  chiefs  of 
savages ;  chiefs  whose  tribes  knew  nothing  of  tillage,  of  homes, 
of  property,  or  comforts  ;  who,  in  the  remoter  parts  of  the  i>land, 
went  almost  unclothed,  and  lay  down  round  fires  to  sleep  on  the 
ground.  These  chiefs  had  lands  to  be  robbed  of.  "  There  will 
be  lands  for  those  who  want,"  said  Queen  Elizabeth,  by  way  of 
stirring  up  her  officials,  when  there  were  tidings  that  O'Neal  was 
about  to  rise  ;  and  it  would,  no  doubt,  have  been  exactly  the 
same  —  the  whole  course  of  her  conquest  of  the  rebels,  whatever 
had  been  their  religion,  of  all  that  existed,  from  pole  to  pole. 
Meantime,  her  Protestant  Church  of  sixty  members  did  not 
expand  to  her  wish,  though  she  gave  bounties  to  it,  and  proscribed 
its  enemies.  When  it  did  expand,  it  was  not  from  conversions 
in  Ireland,  but  by  the  accession  of  the  colonists  of  her  successor, 
and  the  settlement  of  the  soldiers  of  Cromwell. 

The  confusion  which  arose  after  the  incursion  of  these  new 
dwellers  gave  rise  to  the  Act  of  Settlement,  by  which  166Q 
7.800,000  acres  of  land  were  transferred  from  Irish 
Catholic  to  English  Protestant  proprietors.  At  the  first  possible 
moment  —  that  is,  during  the  brief  season  when  James  II.  held 
up  his  head  in  Ireland  —  the  native  Parliament,  in  which  only 
six  Protestants  sat,  repealed  the  Act  of  Setilement,  against  the 
will  of  the  King.  The  battle  of  the  Boyne  presently  overthrew 
whatever  had  been  done ;  and  it  is  not  to  be  wondered  at  that 
the  popery  laws  which  succeeded  were  excessively  severe. 
Though  they  said  a  great  deal  about  religious  error,  they  were 
imposed  in  dread  of  a  political  foe,  whose  physical  force  was  truly 
formidable.  "The  Protestant  ascendency  of  Ireland,"  says  the 
"  Edinburgh  Review  "  of  Sir  J.  Throckmorton's  work  on  the  Cath- 


436  HISTORY  OF   THE  PEACE.  JBoOK  H. 

olic  question,1  "  cared  very  little  about  purgatory  and  the  seven 
sacraments.  They  acted  upon  principles  simply  political ;  and 
their  severiiy  was  not  derived  from  polemical  rancor,  but  from 
the  two  great  springs  of  bitterness,  which  turn  the  milk  of  hu- 
man nature  into  gall,  —  revenge  and  fear.  They  knew  what  the 
vanquished  had  done  in  the  hour  of  success  ;  they  looked  at  their 
numbers  with  dread,  and  sought  to  strengthen  the  barriers  of  law 
against  the  rude  arm  of  physical  power.  The  system  of  the 
popery  laws,  indeed,  in  Ireland,  must  be  looked  at  as  a  whole. 
In  their  present  state  (1806)  they  are  folly,  caprice,  feeble  and 
petulant  tyranny.  As  they  stood  originally,  they  were  vigorous 
and  consistent;  the  firm,  well-riveted  fetiers  of  conquest,  locking 
into  one  another,  and  stretching  down  the  captive  giant  to  the  floor." 
More  forfeitures  ensued  as  soon  as  King  William  had  driven 
irai  out  his  enemy.  The  estates  transferred  on  this  occa- 

sion are  declared  to  have  covered  1,000,793  acres. 
The  one  circumstance  which  softened  their  political  adversity  to 
the  Irish  was  that,  by  the  Treaty  of  Limerick,  framed  when  the 
struggle  was  over,  the  free  exercise  of  their  religion  was  secured 
to  them  for  the  future,  on  the  strength  of  the  Kings  guarantee 
for  himself,  his  heirs,  and  successors,  as  far  as  in  him  lay.  By 
the  words  of  the  treaty  it  was  expressly  declared,  that  "  the 
Roman  Catholics  should  enjoy  such  privileges  in  the  exercise  of 
their  religion  as  are  consistent  with  the  laws  of  Ireland,  or  as 
they  did  enjoy  in  the  reign  of  Charles  II. ;  and  their  majesties, 
as  soon  as  they  can  summon  a  parliament  in  this  kingdom,  will 
endeavor  to  procure  the  said  Roman  Catholics  such  further  secu- 
rity in  that  particular  as  may  preserve  them  from  any  disturbance 
on  account  of  their  religion."  These  articles,  afterwards  pub- 
lished in  letters-patent  under  the  great  seal,  were  signed  by  the 
English  general  on  the  3d  of  October,  1691 ;  and  for  three  weeks 
the  Irish  Romanists  were  hopeful  and  happy.  But  it  was  only 
for  three  weeks  ;  and  then  followed  a  season  of  oppression  so  cruel 
as  to  provoke  the  question  how  it  could  have  been  borne,  in  an 
age  of  the  world  so  advanced.  Of  the  English  government  of 
that  time,  Burke  says  :  "  The  severe  and  jealous  policy  of  a 
conqueror  in  the  crude  settlement  of  his  new  acquisition,  was 
strangely  made  a  permanent  rule  for  its  future  government." 
And  of  the  oppressed  party,  Swift  declared  that  it  was  "just  as 
inconsiderable  in  point  of  power  as  the  women  and  children." 
In  this  weakness  lay  their  strength.  It  was  nourishing  the 
germ  of  that  future  Catholic  question  which  was  soon  to  be^in 
disturbing  cabinets,  and  with  more  and  more  power,  1 11,  a  cen- 
tury after,  it  should  be  looked  upon  with  constant  dread  as  the 
explosive  force  which  was  to  shatter  one  administration  after 
1  Edinburgh  Review,  viii.  p.  315. 


CHAP.  X.]  TREATY   OF  LIMERICK.  437 

another  for  five-and-thirty  years  together,  and  threaten  at  last  to 
revolutionize  the  empire.  Little  did  the  government  of  Queen 
Anne  forese  •  the  consequences  of  setting  its  heel  on  the  neck  of 
the  Catholic  interest ;  but,  though  it  could  not  foreknow  how  it 
would  perplex  and  destroy  a  succession  of  administrations,  and 
craze  the  feeble  brain  of  a  sovereign,  and  invite  invasion  agaia 
and  again,  it  might  have  remembered  how  dangerous  it  is  to  -sink 
individuals,  and,  yet  more,  whole  classes,  so  low,  that  they  can 
fall  no  lower,  and  will  therefore  make  desperate  efforts  to  raise 
themselves.  They  might  have  taken  to  heart  Swift's  words  : 
"  General  calamities,  without  hopes  of  redress,  are  allowed  to  be 
the  great  turners  of  mankind  ;  since  nature  hath  instructed  even 
a  brood  of  goslings  to  stick  together,  while  the  kite  is  hovering 
over  their  heads.  It  is  certain  that  a  firm  union  in  any  country 
where  every  man  wishes  the  same  thing  with  relation  to  the 
public,  may,  in  several  points  of  the  greatest  importance,  in  some 
measure  supply  the  defect  of  power ;  and  even  of  those  rights 
which  are  the  natural  and  undoubted  inheritance  of  mankind." 

On  the  3d  of  October,  1691,  as  we  have  said,  the  Treaty  of 
Limerick,  including  provisions  favorable  to  the  Catho-  Treaty  of 
lies,  was  signed.  On  the  22d  of  the  same  month,  the  Li"w«ck. 
English  Parliament  decreed  that  Irish  members  of  both  Houses 
should  take  the  oaths  of  supremacy;  an  enactment  which  ex- 
cluded Catholics  from  both  the  Irish  Houses  of  Parliament. 
King  William  forgot  his  pledge  to  recommend  the  liberties  of 
the  Catholics  to  the  attention  of  parliament.  Three  years  after 
that  pledge  was  given,  and  when  nothing  had  been  done  to  re- 
deem it,  a  set  of  enactments  was  passed  which  left  the  Roman- 
ists iu  such  a  condition  that  the  wonder  is  that  they  did  not 
spring  at  the  throats  of  their  oppressors,  and  peril  everything  for 
a  savage  revenge.  All  Catholics  were  disarmed,  and  the  priests 
banished  :  that  much  might  have  been  borne ;  but  the  whole 
body  were  deprived  of  all  means  of  educating  their  children, 
and  were  prohibited  from  being  the  guardians,  not  only  of  other 
people's  children,  but  of  their  own.  As  this  was  endured,  other 
privations  li*41o\ved  in  1704.  Every  son  who  would  BeiKnof 
turn  Protestant  might  now  succeed  to  the  family  Qu?cn 
estate,  which  was  stringently  secured  to  him.  A  boy 
of  ten  years  old,  or  younger,  might  thus  dispossess  his  family,  if 
he  declared  himself  a  Protestant.  A  Catholic  could  no  longer 
purchase  land,  or  enjoy  a  long  lease,  or  make  more  than  a  cer- 
tain income  by  hi^  land,  or  marry  a  Protestant,  or  take  his  place 
in  a  line  of  entail,  or  hold  any  office,  civil  or  military,  or  vote  at 
elections,  or,  except  under  certain  conditions,  dwell  in  Limerick 
or  Galway.  Five  years  after,  more  penalties  were  added  ;  and 
again  iu  the  next  reign.  Any  son  of  a  Catholic  might  bring  his 


438  HISTORY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [BOOK  II 

father  into  chancery,  force  him  to  declare  on  oath  the  value  of 
his  property,  and  to  settle  such  an  allowance  upon  the  family  in- 
former as  the  court  should  decree,  not  only  for  the  father's  life, 
but  the  son's.  This  was  a  zeal  for  religion  indeed,  which  could 
slight  morality,  and  set  up  a  new  commandment  in  the  place  of 
the  old  one,  which  enjoins  honor  to  father  and  mother.  Catho- 
lics keeping  schools  were  to  be  prosecuted  as  convicts  ;  and  pa- 
pists were  bound  to  furnish  Protestant  watchmen  for  the  towns, 
and  horses  for  the  militia.  Any  priest  celebrating  marriage  be- 
tween a  papist  and  a  Protestant  was  to  be  hanged.  No  Catho- 
lics were  to  enter  the  profession  of  the  law  ;  and  any  lawyer 
marrying  a  Catholic  was  to  be  held  a  papist.  If  it  makes  the 
heart  sick  now  to  read  these  things,  done  little  more  than  a  cen- 
tury ago,  and  done  in  the  name  of  the  religion  professed  by  both 
parties,  what  must  it  have  been  to  have  endured  them  ?  What 
must  have  been  the  interior  of  Catholic  households  in  those 
days  ?  If  the  blessing  of  education  had  been  left  them,  we 
might  understand  their  patience ;  and  we  can  but  hope  that  cir- 
cumstances were  to  them  an  education  sufficient  for  their  needs  ; 
for  the  children  did  not  rise  against  their  parents,  nor  the  op- 
pressed against  their  oppressors.  There  was  no  rebellion  during 
the  series  of  years  which  added  weight  to  the  oppression  with 
every  new  Parliament.  These  Catholic  households  had,  in  the 
absence  of  learning,  their  faith,  which  they  found  sufficient  to 
bind  them  together  in  love,  to  strengthen  them  against  tempta- 
tion, and  under  poverty  ;  to  nerve  them  to  courage,  and  fortify 
them  for  endurance.  Thus  it  was  at  the  time,  while  the  spirit 
of  confessorship  was  fresh  and  strong  among  them.  But  it  is  the 
first-fruits  of  adversity  only,  or  chiefly,  that  are  blessed.  In 
course  of  time,  the  enforced  ignorance  began  to  tell  upon  the 
mind,  and  the  unrelieved  oppression  upon  the  temper,  of  the 
Catholic  body ;  and  we  see  the  results  now  in  those  moral  de- 
fects of  the  Irish  which  perpetuate  their  social  miseries  after  the 
oppression  has  been  removed.  It  should  be  remembered,  on  the 
other  hand,  that  the  spirit  of  the  Reformation,  which  attributed 
all  the  evils  in  the  world  to  papistry,  had  not  died  out ;  that  the 
memory  of  the  worst  days  of  the  Inquisition  was  fresh,  and  the 
horror  of  the  Gunpowder  Plot,  and  the  dread  of  the  Stuarts. 
It  was  a  mistake  to  suppose  that  the  evils  which  took  place  under 
the  prevalence  of  the  Catholic  faith  were  all  attributable  to  that 
faith;  and  it  was  another  mistake  to  suppose  that  any  faith  can 
be  extirpated  by  persecution:  but  those  were  not  days  of  piiilo- 
sophical  statesmanship ;  and  it  would  be.  unreasonable  to  look  for 
the  springing  up  of  political  philosophy  by  the  lizht  of  Guy 
Fawkes's  lantern,  on  the  footsteps  of  successive  Pretenders. 
The  first  dawn  of  promise  of  better  days  appears  to  have 


CHAP.  X.]       IRISH  INTEREST.  — MR.   GRATTAN.  439 

followed  upon  the  quietness  of  the  Irish  in  the  two  Stuart  rebel- 
lions. While  Scotland  and  the  north  of  England  were  up  in 
anus,  the  Catholics  of  Ireland  gave  no  trouble ;  and  the  Bruns- 
wick sovereigns  were  gratified  and  grateful.  It  was  during  their 
reigns  that  the  Catholics  had  been  deprived  of  the  franchise; 
but  that  act  had  been  an  adverting  again  to  a  political  from 
a  religious  ground.  The  English  faction  had  for  some  time 
been  becoming  Irish  in  its  habits  and  predilections.  As  Mr. 
Burke  said:  "The  English,  as  they  began  to  be  dorniciliated, 
began  al-o  to  recollect  that  they  had  a  country ;  what  was  at 
first  strictly  an  English  interest,  by  faint  and  almost  insensible 
degrees,  but  at  length  openly  and  avowedly,  became  i^sh  inter- 
an  independent  Irish  interest."  The  government  est- 
feared  a  un'on  between  the  two  classes  of  Irish  residents,  which 
might  become  formidable  to  English  rule ;  and  they  rendered 
the  Catholic  class  politically  powerless,  by  depriving  them  of  the 
only  remnant  of  social  influence  they  still  held  —  the  franchise. 
But,  when  the  Irish  remained  quiet  during  the  two  rebellions, 
they  procured  for  themselves  a  degree  of  good  -  will  from  the 
English  government  which  opened  the  way  for  their  final  eman- 
cipation. Their  quietness  was  called  "  loyalty  ;  "  a  term  which 
it  would  be  no  credit  to  them  to  accord  ;  for  they  owed  no  faith 
to  a  sovereignty  which  had  kept  none  with  them,  but  had  hum- 
bled them  from  the  rank  of  subjects  to  that  of  slaves.  By  what- 
ever name  it  may  be  called,  their  demeanor  obtained  for  them 
some  countenance  from  George  II.  and  his  minister,  Walpole ; 
and  in  1757  they  first  reappeared  as  a  distinct  mov- 
ing body  in  the  state,  —  presenting  an  address  at  Dub- 
lin Castle,  during  the  viceroyalty  of  the  Duke  of  Bedford. 

The  "  restraining  system  "  continued,  however,  without  mate- 
rial relaxation,  for  twenty  years  longer.  By  that  time,  a  young 
champion  of  liberty  had  risen  up,  ready  to  make  use  Grattan. 
of,  and  to  ripen,  a  better  state  of  ideas  and  feelings  178°- 
than  had  existed  in  the  days  of  his  fathers.  By  lapse  of  time, 
men's  minds  had  become  enlarged,  and  their  hearts  freed  from 
some  old  fears  and  hatreds  ;  and  Grattan  was  one  to  make  the 
most  of  improved  facilities,  and  to  win  over  the  best  minds  to 
the  right  side.  After  obtaining  the  removal  of  some  restrictions 
on  Irish  commerce,  he  carried  in  the  Irish  Parliament,  in  1780, 
the  memorable  resolution :  ''  That  the  King's  most  excellent 
majesty,  and  the  Lords  and  Commons  of  Ireland,  are  the  only 
competent  power  to  make  laws  to  bind  Ireland."  Many  dis- 
qualifying statutes  were  repealed  in  the  few  subsequent  years ; 
and  the  admission  of  Catholics  to  a  freer  possession  and  disposal 
of  land  was  the  cause  of  that  development  of  agriculture  to  which 
Ireland  owes  the  greater  part  of  the  improvement  in  her  material 
resources  from  that  day  to  this. 


440  HISTORY  OF  THE  PEACE.  BOOK  IL 

Some  students  of  history  look  upon  this  year  1780  as  the 
date  of  an  Irish  revolution  as  important  to  the  Irish  as  that  of 
1688  had  been  to  Great  Britain.  Like  most  revolutions,  it,  was 
achieved  by  the  use  of  irregular  instruments.  It  is  not  our 
business  here  to  give  over  again  the  history  of  the  Irish  volun- 
teers ;  but  merely  to  point  to  them  and  their  agency,  as  a  prece- 
dent which  must  be  kept  in  view  when  we  come  to  the  contem- 
plation of  future  volunteer  associations  in  Ireland.  The  volun- 
teers of  the  last  century  achieved  a  great  work  with 

Volunteers.  / 

little  or  no  damage  or  discredit ;  they  were  repeatedly 
thanked  by  Parliament ;  they  were  honored  and  praised  by  the 
best  part  of  society,  in  both  England  and  Ireland  ;  and  there  can 
be  no  reasonable  wonder,  after  this,  at  the  formation  of  future 
volunteer  societies,  when  further  liberties  had  to  be  contended 
for,  and  must,  in  the  nature  of  things,  be  won.  From  the  date 
of  the  victories  of  1780,  it  was  certain  that  the  questions  of  Irish 
and  Catholic  disqualifications  could  never  again  be  put  aside. 
Complete  equality  with  Englishmen  and  Protestants,' or  complete 
separation,  was  thenceforth  assured  to  the  Catholics  of  Ireland. 
The  English  government  had  relinquished,  under  whatever  com- 
pulsion, the  function  of  oppressor.  There  could  be  no  rest  now 
till  it  assumed  that  of  liberator.  And  till  the  liberation  was 
accomplished,  there  was  no  rest.  During  the  interval  of  delay, 
the  mind  of  the  sovereign  was  perturbed  —  once  to  the  point  of 
insanity  ;  every  cabinet  was  first  distracted,  and  then  broken  up  ; 
and  Parliament  was  agitated  by  the  perpetual  renewal  of  the 
Catholic  demand  for  justice,  and  the  spectacle  of  the  gradual 
strengthening  of  the  claim  which  could  never  more  be  got  rid  of. 
By  this  time,  it  must  be  remembered,  the  Catholics  had  largely 
strength  of  increased  in  numbers.  It  is  disputed  whether,  in 
theCathoiics.  jgQO,  there  was  any  increase  at  all  in  the  numbers  of 
the  Protestants  in  Ireland  during  the  preceding  half-century ; 
and  it  is  certain  that,  from  two  to  one,  the  Catholics  had  then 
become  four  to  one.  The  penal  laws  had  tended  to  banish  the 
Catholics  from  the  towns,  and  drive  them  into  a  rural  life  — too 
often  sordid  as  their  hopes,  and  wild  as  their  despair.  There  in 
their  recklessness,  and  under  the  influence  of  their  priests  —  who 
always  promote  marriage  to  the  utmost  —  the  population  had 
increased  at  an  unusually  rapid  rate.  The  wise  saw,  at  the  end 
of  the  last  century,  that  the  Catholic  question  had  become,  in 
fact,  a  physical-force  question.  It  had  long  been  said,  by  a  suc- 
cession of  writers  and  speakers,  that  the  Catholics  would  obtain 
their  liberties  only  by  the  fears  and  the  wants  of  their  oppress- 
ors; and  now  it  began  to  be  clear,  with  their  numbers  thicken- 
ing on  the  Irish  soil,  and  foes  gathering  against  England  on  the 
continent,  that  the  time  was  coming  for  the  fears  of  government 


CHAP.  X.]  CORONATION  OATH.  441 

to  aet.  The  rebellion  of  1798  showed,  to  every  man  living  at 
the  time,  what  cause  the  government  had  for  fear,  and  what  its 
fears  led  it  to  do.  Those  fears  led  to  the  Act  of  Union  in  1800, 
which  act  was  agreed  to  by  the  people  of  Ireland  on  a  virtual 
pledge  from  Mr.  Pitt  that  the  Catholic  disabilities  should  be  re- 
moved. There  is  no  doubt  that  Mr.  Pitt  purposed  what  he  was 
held  to  have  promised ;  but  he  pledged  himself  to  more  than  he 
could  accomplish.  He  promised  more,  on  behalf  both  of  King 
and  Parliament,  than  either  was  willing  to  perform.  The  King 
scrupled  about  the  coronation  oath,  with  regard  to  which  he  de- 
clared that  his  mind  had  been  made  up  ever  since  he  came  to  the 
throne  in  1760.  As  he  had  done  his  part  in  repealing  pc«al 
laws  in  1778  and  1793,  it  was  hardly  to  be  supposed  that  he 
would  make  a  stand  in  his  course  of  concession  at  the  point  now 
reached  ;  but  Mr.  Pitt  had  not  formally  ascertained  that  he  would 
not ;  and  a  vigorous  stand  indeed  was  now  made. 

With  regard  to  the  coronation  oath,  the  fact  is,  that  it  was 
framed  at  a  t'ime  when  Catholics  sat  in  both  Houses  coronation 
of  Parliament  in  Ireland,  and  when  they  were  eligible  oath- 
to  all  offices,  civil  and  military.  The  oath  was  taken  by  King 
William  two  years  before  the  disqualifying  statutes  of  his  reign 
were  passed.  Much  more  might  be  said  about  the  intent,  scope, 
and  terms  of  the  coronation  oath,  showing  that  it  did  not  bear 
upon  the  question  of  the  exclusion  of  the  Catholics  ;  but  the  fact 
of  the  date  is  enough.  The  King,  George  III.,  however,  was 
not  one  to  discern  things  that  differ,  or  to  admit  facts  which  op- 
posed his  opinions.  So,  when  Lord  Melville  endeavored  to  show 
him  that  his  oath  did  not  disqualify  him  for  improving  the  legis- 
lation of  the  country,  the  King  stopped  him  with  the  words : 
"None  of  your  Scotch  metaphysics !  "  According  to  his  own 
notion,  he  settled  the  matter  by  the  well-known  declaration,  which 
went  to  Pitt's  heart,  that  he  should  consider  any  man  his  per- 
sonal enemy  who  proposed  any  measure  of  relaxation  of  the  Cath- 
olic disabilities.  He  was  not  enlightened  enough  to  know  that 
the  affairs  of  nations  cannot  wait  on  the  ignorance  of^  kings. 
There  were  too  many  who  helped  to  keep  him  in  the  dark,  by 
applauses  of  his  conscientiousness,  and  pleas  on  behalf  of  his  per- 
verted sense  of  responsibility.  There  were  too  many  who,  find- 
ing every  ground  of  reasoning,  political  and  religious,  cut  from 
under  them,  by  the  advance  of  time  and  enlightenment,  clung  to 
the  one  remaining  plea,  —  that  the  King  must  not  be  vexed. 
Pitt  was  too  wise  to  class  himself  with  any  of  these;  Mr.  put. 
but  yet  he  could  not  follow  what  he  clearly  saw  to  be  1801- 
the  right.  He  had,  by  some  carelessness,  brought  himself  into  a 
difficulty  which  was  too  strong  for  him.  Even  he,  who  took 
upon  himself  more  responsibilities  than  any  other  man  of  his  day 


442  HISTORY   OF   THE   PEACE.  [BOOK  II. 

would  have  ventured  to  assume,  was  overcome  by  the  force  of 
the  dilemma  in  which  he  found  himself  placed.  The  Kind's  ten- 
dency to  insanity  formed  the  peculiarity  of  the  case.  The  man 
who  saw  the  case  so  clearly  —  the  pressing  nature  of  the  Catho- 
lic claims,  and  the  requisitions  of  his  own  honor  in  regard  to 
them  —  writhed  under  the  anguish  of  having  driven  the  King 
into  madness,  and  shrank  from  the  risk  of  causing  a  repetition 
of  the  calamity,  though  millions  of  wronged  subjects  were  wait- 
ing for  their  promised  rights,  and  his  own  honor  was  importu- 
nate for  satisfaction.  It  was  a  cruel  position  ;  and  any  man  may 
be  freely  pitied  who  finds  himself  in  it,  however  he  came  there. 
"The  Kin<r,"  says  Lord  Malmesbury  (March  7,  180 1),1  "in 
directing  Wiilis  to  speak  or  write  to  Pitt,  said :  '  Tell  him  I  am 
now  QUITE  recovered  from  my  illness  ;  but  what  has  he  not  to 
answer  for,  who  is  the  cause  of  my  having  been  ill  at  all  ? ' 
This,  on  being  repeated,  affected  Pitt  so  deeply,  that  it  immedi- 
ately produced  the  letter  mentioned  above,  and  brought  from  him 
the  declaration  of  his  readiness  to  give  way  on  the  Catholic 
question."  Pitt's  letter  "was  most  dutiful,  humble,  and  con- 
trite." Here  was  one  side  oK  his  difficulty.  The  other  was,  in 
Lord  Malmesbury's  words : 2  "  While  all  these  arrangements 
are  making  at  home,  all  public  business  is  at  a  stand ;  we  forget 
the  host  of  enemies  close  upon  us,  and  everybody's  mind  thinks 
on  one  object  only,  unmindful  that  all  they  are  contending  about 
may  vanish  and  disappear,  if  we  are  subdued  by  France." 

The  danger  was  imminent  of  the  Irish  uniting  with  the  French 
against  that  throne  which  the  King  declared  would  become  the 
right  of  the  House  of  Savoy,  if  he  violated  the  coronation  oath ; 
and  imminent  the    danger  remained   when  Mr.   Pitt 
came  in  again  in  1804.     But  he  had  had  too  terrible  a 
fright  ever  to  recover  his  courage  ;  and  he  avoided  the  question 
during  the  short  remainder  of  his  life.     In  1807  there  was  much 
stir  about  it,  and  the  subject  was  brought  forward  in 
Parliament,  in  the  belief,  authorized  by  some  of  the 
ministers,  that  the  King  had  become  apathetic  about  this,  as  about 
other  public  affairs ;  but,  when  appealed  to  for  his  opinion,  by  the 
enemies  of  emancipation,  he  showed  himself  as  determined  and 
as  anxious  as  ever ;  and  Lord  Carnden  intimated  to  Lord  Mal- 
mesbury 8  that  he  conceived  himself  to    have  given  a  sort  of 
pledge  to  Pitt,  "  that  the  question  should  not  be  mooted  during 
the  King's  life."     Lord  Camden  himself  was,  "  like  many  others, 
not  so  much  against  the  principle  of  emancipation,  as  because 
the  King  had  declared  himself."     Foolish  and  wrong  as  such  a 
reason  was,  it  was  one  which  tended  to  keep  the  Catholics  from 
rebellion.     If  they  could  really  believe  that  their  emancipation 
i  Diaries,  iv.  p.  34.  2  Ibid.  p.  9.  8  ibid.  p.  378. 


CHAP.  X.]  DISABILITIES   OF  CATHOLICS.  443 

was  awaiting  the  death  of  an  infirm  man  of  sixty-eight,  they 
miglit  well  have  patience,  in  the  hope  of  obtaining  what  they 
wanted  by  law,  instead  of  by  violence.  And  their  condition  was 
no  longer  one  which  it  was  difficult  to  endure  from  day  to  day, 
though  it  was  such  as  they  could  not  acquiesce  in  as  permanent. 
At  that  time,  in  1807,  their  disabilities  were  these. 

The  Catholics  of.  Ireland  could  not  sit  in  either  House  of  Par- 
liament. No  Catholic  could  be  a  guardian  to  a  Prot-  Disabilities 
estant  ;J  and  no  priest  could  be  a  guardian  at  all.  No  of  Catholics'. 
Catholic  could  present  to  an  ecclesiastical  living,  though  Prot- 
estant Dissenters,  and  even  Jews,  could  do  so.  Catholics  were 
allowed  to  have  arms  only  under  certain  restrictions ;  and  no 
Catholic  could  be  employed  as  a  fowler,  or  keep  any  arms  or 
warlike  stores,  for  sale  or  otherwise.  The  pecuniary  qualifica- 
tion of  Catholic  was  higher  than  that  of  Protestant  jurors.  The 
list  of  offices,  state  and  municipal,  to  which  Catholics  were  inel- 
igible, is  long ;  and  they  were  practically  excluded  from  the  pub- 
lic service.  They  were  also  liable  to  the  penalties  of  the  sever- 
est of  the  old  laws,  if  they  did  not  punctually  exempt  themselves 
by  taking  the  oath  and  declaration  prescribed  by  13  and  14 
George  111.  c.  3.  Their  legal  disabilities  occasioned  incalculable 
suffering  in  their  social  relations  —  legal  degradation  being  always 
an  invitation  to  the  baser  part  of  society  to  inflict  insult  and  pri- 
vation which  cannot  be  retaliated.  There  was  a  /systematic  ex- 
clusion of  Catholics  from  juries  in  Ireland  ;  and  in  some  districts 
absolutely  a  banishment  of  them  from  the  soil.  Every  Catholic 
was  so  effectu  illy  excommunicated,  in  certain  parts  of  Ireland,2 
that  he  could  not  preserve  his  property,  or  remain  on  the  spot ; 
and  if  he  happened  to  die  before  he  could  effect  his  removal,  the 
passing-bell  was  jerked  into  a  merry  measure.  Some  wretched 
facts  of  this  nature  were  related,  not  only  at  a  general  meeting 
of  Catholics  held  in  April,  1,807,  but  by  Protestant  noblemen  and 
magistrates  residing  in  Ireland  ;  one  of  whom,  Lord  Gosford, 
chief  magistrate  of  the  county  of  Armagh,  published  a  state- 
ment whose  date  alone  could  make  us  believe  that  it  belongs  to 
the  present  century.  Still,  as  there  appeared  to  be  hope  after 
the  death  of  a  man  of  sixty-eight,  the  Catholics  did  not  n-liel. 

In  1808,  both  Houses  of  Parliament  refused  to  entertain  the 
subject  of  Catholic  emancipation,  under  existing  circumstances. 
On  that  occasion.  Mr.  Grattan  first  introduced  the  proposition  of 
the  veto,  afterwards  so  much  discussed  ;  according  to  which  the 
King  was  to  have  power  to  put  his  veto  upon  the  nomination  of 
Catholic  bishops  Mr.  Grattan  spo'.<e  as  by  authority ;  but  a 
large  portion  of  the  Catholic  body  disapproved  of  the  offer,  and 
it  occasioned  much  dissension  among  them.  During  .Mr.  Perct- 
1  Edinburgh  Review,  xi.  p.  121.  2  Ibid.  p.  126. 


444  HISTORY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [BOOK  IL 

val's  administration,  broken  up  by  his  death  in  1812,  it  had  been 
a  principle  of  his  cabinet  to  resist  the  -Catholic  claims ;  but  the 
resistance  was  based  on  no  ground  of  principle,  but  only  on  the 
plea  of  unfa\x>rable  circumstances.  Still,  therefore,  the  Catholics 
might  wait.  But  they  were  disposed  to  prepare  for  a  change  of 
circumstances,  and,  if  possible,  to  hasten  matters  a  little ;  so  they 
Catholic  com-  enlarged  the  numbers,  powers,  and  scope  of  their 
mittee.  1811.  Catholic  committee,  which  met,  debated,  i-sued  circu- 
lars, and  originated  action,  and  then  dissolved  itself,  from  year  to 
year.  A  vain  war  was  waged  ajrainst  this  committee  in  1811 
and  1812,  by  the  Irish  government,  on  the  ground  of  the  Con- 
vention Act  of  1793.  But  the  Catholics  continued  to  carry 
through  their  meetings,  and  carry  out  their  objects ;  and  Parlia- 
ment  refused  to  interfere  against  them,  while  declining  to  act  in 
favor  of  the  body  they  represented. 

The  time  was  now  past  for  constructing  cabinets  on  the  prin- 
Open  qnes-  ciple  of  opposition  to  the  Catholic  claims.  From  this 
tion.  isia.  time  it  became  an  open  question ;  and  it  proved  as 
troublesome  and  unmanageable  as  open  questions  of  pressing  im- 
portance always  are.  Mr.  Canning  directly  spoke  out,  and  ob- 
tained a  majority  on  his  motion,  that  early  in  the  next  session 
the  House  should  take  the  subject  into  its  most  serious  consider- 
ation, with  a  view  to  a  practical  settlement.  But  before  the 
next  session,  there  was  a  new  parliament,  and  the  pledge  of  the 
old  one  was  lost. 

Now  that  the  subject  had  obtained  admission  to  parliament, 
arose  the  difficulties  which  were  sure  to  spring  up  about  the  details 
of  any  measure  of  emancipation.  The  dissensions  and  discussions 
now  began  about  how  to  proceed,  about  the  securities  which  were 
offered  or  required,  the  safeguards  which  must  be  provided  against 
foreign  influence,  the  limitations  as  to  office  and  function  necessary 
at  home,  and  all  those  matters  of  arrangement  which  indicated  to 
men  of  business  that  some  years  must  probably  yet  elapse  before 
any  effectual  measure  could  be  obtained,  while  they  indicated  to 
men  of  sagacity  that  this  was  the  beginning  of  the  end  —  that 
the  final  stage  of  the  struggle  was  entered  upon.  The  scruples 
of  the  sovereign  were  no  longer  in  the  way ;  it  was  supposed, 
rightly  or  wrongly,  that  no  difficulty  would  be  found  with  the 
Prince  Regent :  almost  as  soon  a-;  Lord  Liverpool  entered  office, 
he  became  convinced  that  concessions  must  be  made  in  no  long 
time ;  and  before  his  health  failed,  he  is  known  to  have  contem- 
plated the  necessity  of  retiring,  to  enable  Mr.  Canning  to  cany 
Catholic  emancipation.  Every  one  saw  that  the  shuffling  expe- 
dient of  sending  over  to  Ireland  administrations  composed  half 
and  half  of  pro-  and  anti-Catholic  men  could  not  answer  for  any 
length  of  time.  It  was  clear  that  the  crisis  was  coming  ;  but  the 


CHAP.  X.]  STATE   OF  OPINION,  1824.  445 

interval  was  painful  and  dangerous,  —  painful  for  the  delay  of 
right-doing,  and  the  obstinate  clinging  to  wrongful  power ;  and 
dangerous  to  the  political  character  of  all  concerned.  Lord  Cas- 
tlereagh  and  Mr.  Canning  went  on,  session  after  session,  moving 
the  hearts  and  minds  of  the  House  and  the  country  witli  pictures 
of  the  state  of  Ireland  and  of  the  Catholic  mind  ;  but  nothing 
seemed  to  come  of  it.  Men  grew  weary  of  so  much  talk  with 
so  little  deed.  By  the  time  they  had  arrived  at  the  session  of 
1820,  accusations  were  all  abroad  against  these  two  1R20 
statesmen :  accusations  of  insincerity  and  of  coward- 
ice ;  because  it  was  believed  that  if  they  chose  to  make  this  a 
cabinet  question,  it  could  be  carried  at  once.  They  were  accused 
of  beiniz  bought  off  by  the  blandishments  of  the  court,  and  the 
amenities  of  the  other  section  of  the  cabinet.  Lord  Castlereagh 
soon  after  slipped  away  beyond  the 'reach  of  human  censure. 
How  it  toM  upon  Mr.  Canning  was  indicated  by  the  extraordi- 
nary quarrel  between  him  and  Mr.  Brougham  in  the  session  of 
1823.  In  1824,  the  aspect  of  the  affairs  of  the  Cath-  lgat 
olics  was  this,  to  a  liberal  and  enlightened  Church- 
man : 1  "  We  are  sorry  we  have  nothing  for  which  to  praise  admin- 
istration on  the  subject  of  the  Catholic  question Looking 

to  the  sense  and  reason  of  the  tiling,  and  to  the  ordinary  working 
of  humanity  and  justice,  when  assisted,  as  they  are  here,  by  self- 
interest  and  worldly  policy,  it  might  seem  absurd  to  doubt  of  the 
result.  But  looking  to  the  facts  and  the  per-ons  by  which  we  are 
now  surrounded,  we  are  constrained  to  say  that  we  greatly  fear 
that  these  incapacities  never  will  be  removed  till  they  are  re- 
movi-d  by  tear.  What  else,  indeed,  can  we  expect  when  we  see 
them  opposed  by  such  enlightened  men  as  Mr.  Peel,  faintly  as- 
sisted by  men  of  such  admirable  genius  as  Mr.  Canning ;  when 
royol  dukes  consider  it  as  a  compliment  to  the  memory  of  their 
fathers  to  continue  this  miserable  system  of  bigotry  and  exclusion  ; 
when  me:i  act  iguominiously  and  contemptuously  on  this  question 
who  do  so  on  no  other  question  ?  .  .  .  .  We  repeat  again,  that  the 
measure  never  will  be  effected  but  by  fear.  In  the  midst  of  one 
of  our  just  and  necessary  wars,  the  Irish  Catholics  will  compel 
this  country  to  grant  them  a  great  deal  more  than  they  at  pres- 
ent require,  or  even  contemplate.  We  regret  most  severely  the 
protraction  of  the  disease,  and  the  danger  of  the  remedy ;  but  in 
this  way  it  is  that  human  affairs  are  carried  on." 

And  what  was  it  that  was  in  the  way  of  the  emancipation  of 
the  Catholics?  This  was  the  question  of  all  others  state  of  opin- 
that  it  was,  at  the  time,  the  most  difficult  to  get  an-  iou> 1S:i4- 
swered.  Was  it  ihe  political  or  religious  ground  that  was  taken 
now?  There  could  be  no  fear,  in  1824,  that  the  Irish  wanted  to 
i  Sydney  Smith's  Works,  Hi.  pp.  12, 13. 


446  HISTORY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [BOOK  II. 

bring  in  the  French,  or  to  bring  in  the  Stuarts,  or  to  dethrone 
the  House  of  Brunswick  in  favor  of  any  royal  house  designated 
by  the  pope.  There  could  be  no  idea,  in  this  century,  of  massa- 
cres for  the  faith,  or  of  gunpowder-plots,  or  of  Smithfield  fires,  or 
of  an  inquisition  in  England.  And  surely  there  could  not  be,  in 
our  day,  any  notion  of  converting  five  or  six  millions  of  Catho- 
lics from  a  false  to  a  true  faith  by  a  system  of  exclusion  and 
insult.  How  was  it  ?  What  was  the  avowed  ground  of  the 
opponents  of  the  Catholic  claims? 

This  is  a  case  in  which  we  see  in  what  "  way  it  is  that  human 
aftairs  are  carried  on."  The  reality  was  all  gone  out  of  the 
question  on  one  side,  and  had  left  merely  a  residiium  of  words. 
The  newer  generations  did  not,  and  could  not  feel  the  fierce  po- 
litical hatred  and  fear  which  instigated  the  early  repression  of  the 
Catholics ;  and  they  showed  no  signs  of  religious  proselytism. 
The  truth  was,  there  was  no  longer  any  common  ground  on  which 
the  opposition  was  conducted.  Every  opponent  had  his  own 
plea ;  and  the  pleas  were,  for  the  most  parr,  mere  words.  One 
talked  of  the  coronation  o;ith,  following  the  lead  of  the  Duke  of 
York  ;  though  it  wa-  known  that  the  King  did  not  recognise  that 
impediment.  Another  spoke  of  the  compact  with  Ireland,  ac- 
cording to  whit  h  the  Protestant  Church  was  to  be  exclusively 
favored  by  the  state.  Another  had  no  confidence  in  the  Cath- 
olics. Others  dreaded  letting  in  the  influence  of  the  pope. 
Others  talked  of  "  the  mysterious  and/sublimed  union  of  Church 
and  State  being  a  sacred  subject,  that  soars  above  the  ken  of 
worldly  po'ic}  ; "  and  of  its  being  "an  ethereal  essence,  that 
sanctifies  and  gives  a  character  of  perpetuity  to  our  state."  All 
these  difficulties,  misty  and  unsubstantial,  were  sure  to  be  wafted 
away  by  the  first  strong  breeze  of  danger.  And  so  were  the 
impediments  which  were,  in  fact,  the  most  real,  —  those  arising 
from  habit.  The  habit  of  considering  the  Catholics  excluded, 
inferior,  dangerous,  kept  under  by  the  wisdom  of  our  ancestors, 
was  in  fact  the  main  obstacle  to  their  emancipation.  That  which 
was  afterwards  ascertained  and  avowed  was  true  now,  —  that  the 
real  difficulty  lay,  not  with  kings,  princes,  and  cabinets,  but  with  the 
people  of  England,  before  whom  the  question  had  never  yet  been 
fairly  brought.  Nothing  was  so  likely  to  bring  the  question  be- 
fore them  as  danger  ;  and  therefore  it  was  that  the  advocates  of 
the  Catholics  were  justified  in  predicting,  as  they  did  from  cen- 
tury to  century,  that  fear  would  prove  at  last  the  emancipating 
power.  Another  means  of  presenting  the  matter  fully  to  the 
popular  mind  began  now,  however,  to  come  into  full  operation. 
The  press  was  brought  into  action  in  a  curious  manner,  on  be- 
half of  the  struggling  party.  While  the  sons  of  Catholic  gen- 
try in  Ireland  were  excluded  from  many  lines  by  which  eminence 


CIU.P.  X.]  KING'S  SPEECH.  447 

might  he  reached,  they  naturally  flocked  to  the  career  of  the  law. 
While  in  London,  training  for  the  bar,  many  of  them  were  glad 
to  eke  out  their  scanty  resources,  by  such  profitable  employment 
as  they  could  find  fur  their  leisure  hours,  which  was  not  incom- 
patible with  their  business  and  their  station ;  and  a  large  propor- 
tion of  reporters  for  the  London  press  at  this  time  consisted  of 
young  Irish  barristers.  Those  who  reported  the  parliamentary 
debates  naturally  gave  prominence  to  such  as  affected  the  Catho- 
lic question ;  and  for  some  years  before  that  question  was  settled 
they  indefatigably  reported  whatever  was  said  upon  it,  excluding 
for  its  sake,  when  there  was  not  room  for  everything,  any  other 
sul ject  whatever.  Those  who  are  at  present  familiar  witli  Irish 
newspapers  are  amused  to  see  how  many  columns  of  parliamen- 
tary intelligence  are  filled  with  Irish  affairs,  while  those  of  Eng- 
land, Scotland,  and  the  colonies  are  crowded  into  a  corner ;  and 
thus  it  was  when  the  Catholic  question  was  approaching  its  crisis. 
By  this  accident  or  method,  the  British  people  were  led  to  sup- 
pose that  Catholic  affairs  occupied  much  more  of  the  time  and 
attention  of  the  two  Houses  than  they  really  did ;  and  were 
brought,  accordingly,  to  devote  more  thought  and  feeling  to  the 
great  Catholic  subject  than  they  otherwise  would. 
Everything  being  thus  in  train,  the  events  of  1825 
began  their  march,  in  the  eyes  of  an  attentive  and  anxious  na- 
tion. 

The  King's  speech,  delivered  by  commission  on  the  3d  of 
February,1  alter  congratulating  parliament  on  the  pros-  King'g 
perity  of  the  country,  expressed  gratification  that  this  "P**11- 
prosperity  extended  to  Ireland,  and  that  the  outrages  which  had 
formerly  prevailed  had  of  late  almost  ceased.  "  It  is  therefore," 
continued  the  speech,  "  the  more  to  be  regretted  that  ;issoci;itions 
should  exist  in  Ireland,  which  have  adopted  proceed! HITS  irrecon- 
cilable with  the  spirit  of  the  constitution,  and  calculated,  by  ex- 
citing alarm,  and  by  exasperating  animosities,  to  endanger  the 
peace  of  society,  and  to  retard  the  course  of  national  improve- 
ment. His  Majesty  relies  upon  your  wisdom  to  consider,  without 
delay,  the  means  of  applying  a  remedy  to  this  evil." 

This  is  the  speech  of  which  Lord  Eldon  wrote : 2  "  To-day 
we  have  a  cabinet  in  Downing  Street,  and  council  at  Carlton 
House,  to  try  if  we  can  make  a  good  speech  for  the  King.  But 
there  are  too  many  hands  at  work  to  make  a  good  thing  of  it,  and 
so  you  will  think,  I  believe,  when  you  read  it.  ...  I  don't  much 
admire  the  composition  or  the  matter  of  the  speech.  My  old 
master,  the  late  King,  would  have  said  that  it  required  to  be  set 
off  by  good  reading.  It  falls  to  my  lot  to  read  it,  and  I  should 
read  it  better  if  I  liked  it  better." 

1  Hansard,  xii.  p.  2.  2  Life  of  Lord  Eldon,  ii.  p.  534. 


448  HISTORY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [Boos  IL 

A  part  of  this  speech,  a  very  small  part,  cnused  long  and  ve- 
Cathoiic  hement  debate  in  parliament.  That  small  part  was 
association.  the  letter  "  s  "  affixed  to  the  word  association.  The 
question  was,  whether  the  reprobation  expressed  related  to  the 
great  new  Catholic  Association  just  arisen  in  Ireland,  and  was 
therefore  a  blow  aimed  expressly  at  the  Catholics,  or  whether  it 
included  the  Orange  clubs  which  were  in  great  force  at  that  time. 
The  Catholic  Association  claimed  the  credit  of  having  quieted 
the  outrages  of  h-eland,  and  asserted  their  right  to  honor  accord- 
ingly ;  while  their  enemies  clamored  for  their  suppression,  on  the. 
ground,  of  the  adjuration  by  which  they  had  quieted  Ireland. 
This  adjuration  was :  "  By  the  hate  they  bore  the  Orangemen, 
who  were  their  natural  enemies,  and  by  the  confidence  they 
reposed  in  the  Catholic  Association,  who  were  their  natural  and 
zealous  friends,  to  abstain  from  all  secret  and  illegal  associations 
and  Whiteboy  disturbances  and  outrages."  Whether  that  letter 
u  s  "  was  a  gloss  or  a  reality,  it  is  certain  that  the  Catholic  Asso- 
ciation filled  a  space  in  the  view  of  the  ministry  and  the  country 
which  left  little  room  for  clubs  of  inferior  magnitude.  "  I>et  the 
proposed  measures  be  carried,"  said  Mr.  Brougham,  "  and  the 
Catholic  Association  will  be  put  down  with  one  hand,  while  the 
Orange  societies  will  receive  only  a  gentle  tap  with  the  other." 

The  Catholic  Association  had  held  its  first  open  meeting  in  Jan- 
uary l  of  the  preceding  year ;  and  in  the  following  May,  Mr.  Plunket 
had  declared,  on  being  questioned  in  the  House,  that  the  govern- 
ment was  closely  watching  its  proceedings.  The  great  avowed 
object  of  the  association  was  the  preparation  of  petitions  to  par- 
liament ;  but,  during  a  course  of  months,  no  petitions  were  forth- 
coming, while  other  kinds  of  business  proceeded  briskly.  The 
association  held  regular  sessions  in  Dublin,2  nominated  commit- 
tees, received  petitions,  referred  them  to  its  committee  of  griev- 
ances, ordered  a  census  of  the  population  to  be  taken,  and  levied 
a  tribute  which  was  called  the  Catholic  rent.  This  tribute  was 
declared  to  be  voluntary,  but  it  can  hardly  be  said  that  the  pay- 
ments of  the  poor  in  Ireland,  collected  on  the  requisition  of  the 
priests,  are  voluntary  ;  and  the  weekly  collection  was  generally 
regarded  as  a  tax.  The  avowed  objects  to  which  the  mon<-y  was 
to  be  applied  were  the  supply  of  a  Catholic  priesthood  to  Amer- 
ica ;  the  supply  of  more  priests  to  England  ;  and  the  purchase 
of  as  much  as  could  be  had  of  the  influence  of  the  press.  Into 
what  other  channels  the  money  might  flow,  there  was  ample  room 
for  conjecture.  It  was  believed  that  the  amount  often  reached 
fifty  pounds  in  a  day ;  and  government  and  parliament  soon 
thought  it  time  to  be  watching  how  it  was  spent. 

Among  those  who  feared  and  disliked  this  association  were 
1  Hansard,  xi.  p.  946.  2  Ibid.  p.  944. 


CHAP.  X.]  CATHOLIC  DEPUTATION.  449 

the  English  Catholics  generally.  Lord  Redesdale  writes  to  the 
Lord  Chancellor,  on  the  last  day  of  1824  : 1  "  I  learn  that  Lord 
Fingall  and  others,  Catholics  of  English  blood,  are  alarmed  at  the 
present  state  of  things  ;  and  they  may  well  be  alarmed.  If  a 
revolution  were  to  happen  in  Ireland,  it  would  be  in  the  end  an 
Irish  revolution,  and  no  Catholic  of  English  blood  would  fare 
better  than  a  Protestant  of  English  blood.  So  said  Lord  Castle- 
haven,  an  Irish  Catholic  general  of  English  blood,  170  years 
ago ;  and  so  said  a  Roman  Catholic  of  Irish  blood,  confidentially 
to  me,  above  twenty  years  ago.  The  question  is  not  simply 
Protestant  and  Catholic,  but  English  and  Irish  ;  and  the  great 
motive  of  action  will  be  hatred  of  the  Sasenagh,  inflamed  by  the 
priests."  Here  was  the  old  quarrel  again ;  and  here  was  the 
danger  which  made  wise  men  believe  that  the  day  of  emancipa- 
tion was  drawing  on. 

For  a  little  while,  the  fear  excited  by  this  body  caused  an  un- 
usual jealousy  on  the  part  of  the  King  about  any  favor  being 
shown  to  English  Catholics.  He  who  had,  after  his  accession, 
cordially  offered  religious  equality  to  his  Hanoverian  subjects, 
cavilled  at  parliament,  and  grew  stiff  with  his  Chancellor,  in  the 
summer  of  1824,  because  the  Catholic  Duke  of  Norfolk  was  en- 
abled, by  a  bill  which  passed  both  Houses,  to  exercise  Earl  mar- 
bis  office  of  earl  marshal  of  England,  by  taking  the  8hal- 
oath  of  allegiance,  without  that  of  supremacy,  or  the  declaration 
against  transubstantiation.  The  dread  was  lest,  by  beginning  to 
give  anything,  it  should  become  necessary  to  give,  first  more,  and 
then  everything  which  the  Catholics  demanded.  As  the  Chan- 
cellor himself  bowed  to  the  declared  will  of  the  Lords,  the  King 
yielded ;  and  the  earl  marshal  appeared  in  his  robes  in  the 
House  which  he  could  not  yet  enter  as  a  peer  of  parliament : 
and  the  sky  did  not  fall. 

A  deputation  of  Catholic  lords  and  gentlemen,  sent  by  the 
association,  was  sitting  in  London,  to  watch  over  the  catholic 
interests  of  their  body,  under  the  approaching  attack  deputation, 
upon  it  in  parliament,  and  to  be  ready  to  afford  information  to 
friendly  legislator^  of  either  House,  in  answer  to  whatever 
charges  might  be  brought.  On  the  10th  of  February,  the  Irish 
Secretary,  Mr.  Goulburn,  brought  in  a  bill  "  to  amend  the  acts 
relating  to  unlawful  societies  in  Ireland  ; "  the  object  of  which  was 
to  put  down  the  Catholic  Association.  Through  Mr.  Brougham, 
the  deputation  made  known  their  desire  to  be  heard  at  the  bar  of 
the  House,  in  justification  of  their  body  from  certain  allegations 
made  against  them  in  parliament.  Of  course,  this  could  not  be 
granted,  as  the  association  was  not  a  recognized  body,  but  one 
whose  unconstitutional  character  was  admitted  on  every  hand. 

i  Life  of  Lord  Eldon,  ii.  p.  530. 
VOL.  n.  29 


450  HISTORY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [Boon  II. 

The  only  question  really  was,  whether  there  existed  a  crisis 
which  could  be  held  to  justify  the  formation  of  such  an  organi- 
zation ?  Some  spoke  of  the  volunteers  of  1780,  and  reminded 
each  other  that  those  volunteers  had  repeatedly  received  the 
thanks  of  parliament ;  but  the  parallel  between  the  two  oases 
failed  in  the  important  particular,  that  the  volunteers  did  not 
unfte  for  political  purposes,  but  for  the  military  defence  of  the 
country.  They  made  use  of  their  organization  at  length  for 
political  purposes,  and  achieved  them ;  but  there  was  nothing  in 
their  case  which  could  be  allowed  as  a  precedent  in  any  but  war- 
like or  revolutionary  times.  While  the  Catholic  claims  were  an 
open  question  in  the  cabinet,  and  any  one  cabinet  ministemvas 
pledged  in  its  favor,  there  could  be  no  excuse  for  any  kind  of 
revolutionary  institution  or  movement.  Mr.  Goulburn  obtained 
his  bill  by  a  majority  of  278  to  123,  and  it  became  law  on  the 
Association  9th  of  March.1  It  apparently  annihilated  the  Catho- 
dissoived.  jjc  Association  ;  but  the  dissolution  was  a  mere  form. 
To  lay  a  finger  upon  it  was  merely  to  scatter  a  globule  of  quick- 
silver: it  was  sure  to  run  together  again.  Justice  was  the  only 
true  amalgamating  power ;  and  every  endeavor  to  delay  its  appli- 
cation only  proved  its  necessity  the  more. 

The  parliamentary  advocates  of  the  cause  mourned  at  length 
and  aloud  the  formation  of  the  association,  and  its  adjuration : 
"  By  the  hate  you  bear  to  Orangemen."  Mr.  Canning,  to  whom 
it  was  owing  that  the  King  was  converted  and  (he  cabinet  liber- 
alized, declared  that  the  procedure  "  resembled  the  scheme  of  an 
enemy,  who  had  devised  this  as  the  best  invention  for  throwing 
back  and  thwarting  the  further  progress  of  the  question  of  eman- 
cipation." So  thought  the  friends  of  the  Catholics,  very  sin- 
cerely. But  they  stood  outside  the  cause  ;  and  those  who  were 
within  it  believed  them  wrong  ;  and  so  the  event  proved  them  to  be. 
The  subjects  of  a  great  cause  always  move  in  it  differently  from 
the  way  that  their  friends  outside  would  have  them ;  and  the 
sufferers  usually  show  in  the  end  that  they  understand  their  busi- 
ness best.  They  were  satisfied  now  with  their  own  method  of 
proceeding.  They  knew  that  their  association  would  be  put 
down ;  and  they  were,  no  doubt,  aware  that  it  ought  to  be  put 
down.  The  leaders  were  sagacious  lawyers,  as  was  shown  by 
the  curious  care  with  which  the  addresses  and  proceedings  of  the 
body  were  kept  within  the  letter  of  the  existing  law ;  so  that  it 
was  necessary  for  the  administration  to  come  to  parliament  for  a 
new  law  to  suppress  them.  This  necessity  was  the  crowning 
success,  for  this  year,  of  the  association.  The  leaders  were  sat- 
isfied when  they  saw  the  House  of  Commons  sitting  night  after 
night,  adjourning  late  in  the  morning  for  successive  mornings, 
1  Hansard,  xii.  p.  521. 


CHAP.  X.]  MR.  CANNING'S  SPEECH.  451 

filling  the  eye  and  ear  of  the  nation  with  the  acts  and  appeals  of 
the  Catholic  body.  This  was  victory  for  the  time  —  the  complet- 
est  victory  that  the  time  would  admit.  They  knew  that  the  real 
obstacle  to  their  emancipation  was  now  the  indifference  of  the 
English  nation.  They  knew  that  the  King  was  near  the  point  of 
yielding ;  thanks  to  the  influence  of  Mr.  Canning.  They  knew 
that  the  cabinet  was  vacillating ;  thanks  to  the  influence  of  Mr. 
Canning.  They  knew  that  if  Mr.  Canning  was  called  up,  even 
to  reprobate  them  and  their  proceedings,  they  would  have  an  all- 
sufficient  advocacy  ;  for  his  very  reprobation  must  be  the  strongest 
possible  testimony  to  the  pressure  of  the  time.  They  obtained  all 
they  could  have  contemplated,  and  perhaps  more  than  they  antici- 
pated, in  the  avowal  and  narrative  which  the  pressure  of  the  time 
elicited  from  him,  of  his  own  experience,  and  that  of  all  the 
statesmen  of  his  day,  in  relation  to  this  cause.  Perhaps  no  single 
manife  tation  so  aided  the  Catholic  cause  in  its  whole  career,  as 
the  memorable  speech  of  February  loth,  in  which  Mr.  Canning 
delivered  to  the  world  the  history  of  the  Catholic  question  for  the 
preceding  century,  and  his  own  history  in  connection  with  it. 
The  narrative  came  to  the  ear  of  the  nation  as  a  decree  of  fate; 
and  his  political  autobiography  went  far  to  win  over  the  nation's 
heart.  Having  shown  how  he  took  his  stand  upon  the  Catholic 
question  when  the  most  insuperable  obstacle  was  removed  by  the 
withdrawal  of  George  III.  from  political  life,  and  how  he  refused 
office  at  the  most  tempting  moment,  rather  than  enter  a  cabinet 
decided  against  the  Catholic  claims,  he  went  on :  *  "'  Sir,  I  have 
always  refused  to  act  in  obedience  to  the  dictates  of  the  Catholic 
leaders ;  I  would  never  put  myself  into  their  hands,  and  I  never 

will Much  as  I  have  wished  to  serve  the  Catholic  cause, 

I  have  seen  that  the  service  of  the  Catholic  leaders  is  no  easy 
service.  They  are  hard  taskmasters ;  and  the  advocate  who 
would  satisfy  them  must  deliver  himself  up  to  them  bound  hand 

and  foot But  to  be  taunted  with  a  want  of  feeling  lor  the 

Catholics,  to  be  accused  of  compromising  their  interests,  conscious 
as  I  am  —  as  I  cannot  but  be  —  of  being  entitled  to  their  grati- 
tude for  a  long  course  of  active  services,  and  for  the  sacrifice  to 
their  cause  of  interests  of  my  own,  —  this  is  a  sort  of  treatment 
which  would  rouse  even  tameness  itself  to  assert  its  honor,  and 
vindicate  its  claims.  I  have  shown  that  in  the  year  1812  I  re- 
fused office,  rather  than  enter  into  an  administration  pledged 
against  the  Catholic  question.  I  did  this  at  a  time  when  office 
would  have  been  dearer  to  me  than  at  any  other  period  of  my 
political  life ;  when  I  would  have  given  ten  years  of  life  for 
two  years  of  office  ;  not  for  any  sordid  or  selfish  purpose  of  per- 
sonal aggrandizement,  but  for  far  other  and  higher  views.  But 
i  Hansard,  xii.  pp.  492,  493. 


452  HISTORY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [BOOK  TL 

is  this  the  only  sacrifice  which  I  have  made  to  the  Catholic 
cause  ?  The  House  will  perhaps  bear  with  me  a  little  longer, 
while  I  answer  this  question  by  another  fact.  From  the  earliest 
dawn  of  my  public  life  —  ay,  from  the  first  visions  of  youthful 
ambition  —  that  ambitton  had  been  directed  to  one  object  above 
all  others.  Before  that  object  all  others  vanished  into  compara- 
tive insignificance  ;  it  was  desirable  to  me  beyond  all  the  blan- 
dishments of  power,  beyond  all  the  rewards  and  favors  of  the 
crown.  That  object  was  to  represent,  in  this  House,  the  univer- 
sity in  which  I  was  educated.  I  had  a  fair  chance  of  accomplish- 
ing this  object  when  the  Catholic  question  crossed  my  way.  I 
was  warned  —  fairly  and  kindly  warned  —  that  my  adoption  of 
that  cause  would  blast  my  prospect.  I  adhered  to  the  Catholic 
cause,  and  forfeited  all  my  long-cherished  hopes  and  expectations. 
And  yet  I  am  told  that  I  have  made  no  sacrifice !  that  I  have 
postponed  the  cause  of  the  Catholics  to  views  and  interests  of 
my  own  !  Sir,  the  representation  of  the  university  has  fallen 
into  worthier  hands.  I  rejoice  with  my  right  honorable  friend 
near  me  (Mr.  -Peel)  in  the  high  honor  which  he  has  obtained. 
Long  may  he  enjoy  the  distinction  ;  and  long  may  it  prove  a 
source  of  reciprocal  pride,  to  our  parent  university  and  to  him- 
self! Never  till  this  hour  have  I  stated,  either  in  public  or  in 
private,  the  extent  of  this  irretrievable  sacrifice ;  but  I  have  not 
felt  it  the  less  deeply.  It  is  past,  and  I  shall  speak  of  it  no  more." 
Nothing  could  be  a  stronger  testimony  to  the  urgency  of  the 
cause  than  that  the  foremost  of  British  statesmen  should  be  sub- 
ject to  compulsion  like  this,  forced  to  avowals  like  these,  while 
separated  by  deep  distrust  and  dislike  from  the  Catholic  leaders. 
But  even  yet,  the  degree  of  the  urgency  was  not  understood. 
Mr.  Peel  sat  by  Mr.  Canning's  side,  and  received  his  congratu- 
lations on  his  relation  to  the  University  of  Oxford,  and  heard  his 
hopes  that  the  relation  mi^ht  subsist  long  and  happily.  But 
even  then  there  were  stirrings  in  the  heart  of  the  listener ;  there 
were  doubts  beginning  to  move  in  his  mind  which  already  put 
that  relation  in  jeopardy,  and  were  soon  to  exclude  him,  in  his 
turn,  from  the  representation  of  his  university.  When  his  turn 
arrived,  he  confessed  that  the  events  of  the  session  of  1825  had 
made  such  an  impression  upon  him  that  he  went  to  Lord  Liy.- 
erpool,  desiring  to  resign  his  office,  because  the  opinion  of  the 
House  was  declared  against  him  on  the  Catholic  question,  and 
avowing  to  the  Premier  that  he  believed  the  time  was  come 
when  '•  something  ought  to  be  done  about  the  Catholics."  Lord 
Liverpool's  threat  of  retiring  also  induced  Mr.  Peel  to  wait  for 
another  manifestation  of  the  feelings  of  the  country ;  but  this 
was  the  time  when  the  hook  caught  the  chain  which  bound  him 
to  follow  the  destiny  of  Canning  in  his  sacrifices  for  the  Catholic 
question. 


CHAP.  X.]  MR.  O'CONNELL.  453 

Mr.  Canning  called  the  Catholic  leaders  "  hard  taskmasters," 
whose  advocates  mu<t  submit  to  be  bound  hand  and  foot.  Noth- 
ing could  please  them  better  than  such  a  description.  The  rep- 
utation of  a  strong  will  is,  in  itself,  an  unlimited  power.  These 
men  had  ci-ased  to  be  suppliant-*,  and  had  become  taskmasters, 
whoever  might  be  their  servants.  The  description  was  true; 
for  there  was  a  man  among  them  who  was  about  to  Mr.  O'Con- 
become  a  power  in  the  state.  Daniel  O  Connell  had  neU- 
been  an  active  agitator  on  behalf  of  the  Catholic  claims  for  so 
many  years  now,  as  to  be  known  by  name  through  the  length 
and  breadth  of  the  kingdom.  He  had  been  a  chief  mover  in 
the  committees  in  Dublin  ;  he  was  the  organizer  of  the  associa- 
tion, and  was  now  reputed  to  hold  three  millions  of  the  Irish 
people  in  his  hand,  ready  with  a  touch  to  be  turned  to  good  or 
evil.  He  came  up  as  a  delegate  invested  in  a  kind  of  glory  ;  for 
in  Dublin  he  had  been  indicted  for  sedition  in  the  January  just 
past,  and  the  grand  jury  had  thrown  out  the  bills.  He  who  had 
evaded  the  law  in  the  formation  and  procedure  of  successive 
Catholic  committees  —  he  who  had  detied  the  law  in  the  late 
prosecution  for  sedition  —  he  who  held  three  millions  of  the 
Iri-h  people  in  his  hand,  and  the  peace  of  Ireland  at  his  bidding, 
might  think  himself  entitled  to  be  a  "  hard  taskmaster."  And 
he  who  was  not  only  idolized  by  the  multitude  among  whom  he 
had  lived,  and  adored  by  his  own  family,  but  who  so  attached 
his  personal  friends  by  his  charms  of  intellect  and  temper,  as  that 
they  could  not  sit  in  the  room  while  he  was  found  fault  with, 
might  well  suppose  himself  authorized  to  issue  his  commands, 
and  have  them  readily  obeyed,  whatever  they  might  be.  But 
there  was  one  attribute  of  his  which  made  him  too  hard  a  task- 
master for  men  who  chose  to  retain  their  manhood,  —  his  incapa- 
city for  truth.  The  untruthfulness  of  O'Connell  must  be  re- 
garded as  a  constitutional  attribute.  He  was  so  devoid  of  all 
compunction  and  all  shame  in  regard  to  the  random  character  of 
his  representations,  that  the  only  supposition  is,  that  he  had  not 
the  ordinary  perception  of  truth  and  falsehood  ;  and  this  became 
at  last  so  general  an  impression,  that  the  rest  of  his  character 
was  judged  of,  apart  from  this,  in  a  way  which,  perhaps,  was 
never  tried  in  the  case  of  any  other  man.  If  he  could  not  obtain 
respect,  he  obtained  admiration  and  enthusiasm,  even  from  many 
who  hold,  with  the  rest  of  the  world,  that  the  qualities  he  was 
deficient  in  —  veracity  and  high  courage  —  are  precisely  the  first 
requisites  of  political  honor,  the  most  essential  attributes  of  the 
political  hero.  Nature  now  and  then  sets  aside,  with  a  haughty 
movement,  all  rules  —  even  of  morals  ;  and  in  this  case  she  so 
overruled  matters,  as  that  a  man  whom  every" one  knew  to  be 
neither  brave,  nor  veracious,  nor  of  thorough  disinterestedness, 


454  HISTORY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [Boos  H. 

should  obtain,  not  merely  the  influence,  but  the  deference  which 
is  usually  accorded  to  high  character  only.  Of  course,  he  had 
qualities  which  must  account  for  this  ;  moral  as  well  as  intellec- 
tual qualities.  His  domestic  use  of  power  was  very  beautiful,  — 
genial  and  benevolent.  His  ardor  was  captivating,  and  thor- 
oughly respectable,  when  thrown  into  the  great  cause.  His 
buoyancy  and  gayety  of  spirit  were  as  attractive  and  attaching 
as  his  sagacity,  energy,  and  perseverance  were  animating  to  his 
coadjutors.  When  we  consider,  in  connection  with  these  things, 
what  it  must  have  been  to  the  Irish  Catholics  to  have  a  champion 
and  leader  wJio  was  really  able  to  manage  their  cause,  and  deter- 
mined to  carry  it  through  —  how  much  of  ancient  expectation 
and  new  hope  settled  upon  his  head  —  we  cannot  wonder  that 
he  was  regarded  by  multitudes  as  a  heaven-sent  king,  and  that 
he  received  homage  accordingly,  though  some  of  the  highest 
kingly  qualities  were  wanting.  The  truth  appears  to  have  been, 
that  in  O'Connell  two  sets  of  characteristics  were  united,  which 
are  usually  supposed  to  be  incompatible.  He  was  genuinely 
impetuous,  ardent,  open-hearted,  patriotic,  and  devoted ;  and 
then  again,  he  was  genuinely  cautious  and  astute  ;  calculating, 
sly,  untruthful;  grasping,  selfish,-  and  h\  pocritical.  He  was 
profuse,  and  he  was  sordid ;  he  was  rash,  and  he  was  unfathom- 
ably  politic ;  now  he  was  flowing  out,  and  now  he  was  circum- 
venting. Among  all  his  changes,  however,  he  never  was  brave, 
he  never  was  reliable  or  accurate ;  and  he  never  kept  his  eye  off 
the  money-boxes  which  supplied  his  annual  income  from  the 
scrapings  of  the  earnings  of  the  poor.  There  was  no  reasonable 
objection  to  O'Connell's  being  supported  by  his  country.  There 
was  every  reason  why  he  should  be,  and  none  why  he  should 
not.  He  had  a  large  family,  and  was  sure  to  rise  to  great  emi- 
nence in  his  profession,  if  he  had  devoted  himself  to  it  as  pro- 
fessional men  usually  do.  If,  because  he  was  the  man  to  redeem 
the  Irish  cause,  he  was  withdrawn  from  his  profession  and  its 
emoluments,  it  was  merely  just  that  he  should  be  compensated 
by  the  Irish  people.  But  nothing  could  be  worse  than  the  way 
in  which  it  was  done  ;  nothing  could  be  worse  for  his  character, 
his  mind,  and  the  reputation  of  the  cause.  Instead  of  a  single 
effort  made  vigorously  and  once  by  the  wealthy  of  his  clients, 
and  all  who  chose  to  give,  whether  little  or  much,  so  that  means 
might  be  raised  equal  to  the  utmost  which  Mr.  O'Conuell  could 
have  made  by  his  profession,  to  set  him  free  to  serve  his  country 
for  life,  the  subscription  was  made  an  annual  affair,  and  levied 
under  the  compulsion  of  the  priests.  There  is  no  need  to  dwell 
on  this.  The  consequences  may  be  easily  inferred.  It  made  his 
very  enemies  blush  to  see  how  the  affair  went  on,  in  the  latter 
years  of  his  life,  when  the  begging  season  came  round.  Great 


CHAP.  X.]          NEW  CATHOLIC  ASSOCIATION.  455 

allowance  must  be  made  for  a  man  placed  in  such  circumstances 
of  precariousncss.  But  a  review  of  his  character  on  all  sides, 
with  every  allowance  that  justice  and  mercy  require,  must  leave 
an  impression  that  he  must  indeed  have  been  the  chief  of  the 
"  hard  taskmasters,''  with  whom  statesmen  could  come  into  no 
alliance,  because  true  alliance  was  not  possible,  but  only  fettered 
service,  such  as  cannot  be  rendered  by  honorable  men. 

The  sending  of  the  delegates  to  London,  and  the  necessity  of 
bringing  the  Catholic  Association  under  the  notice  progress  of 
of  parliament,  were  very  welcome  to  the  liberal  'he  question, 
section  of  the  cabinet.  Till  now,  their  position  had  been  pain- 
ful, as  a  position  of  compromise  must  ever  be.  The  administra- 
tion in  Ireland  had  been  carefully  composed,  half  and  half,  of 
favorers  and  opponents  of  the  Catholic  cause ;  and  of  course, 
there  had  existed  the  consequent  evil  of  an  unsound  and  unsteady 
government  in  that  disturbed  quarter.  The  enforced  silence 
upon  Irish  subjects  in  the  cabinet  must  have  been  irksome ; 
and  the  awaiting  of  some  inevitable  change  not  a  little  fearful. 
All  were  set  free  now  ;  for  they  were  all  united  in  reprobating 
the  Catholic  Association  as  unlawful  machinery  which  could  not 
be  allowed  to  work  ;  and  the  occasion  brought  freedom  of  speech 
and  hope  of  a  good  issue  to  the  friends  of  the  Catholics.  They 
spoke  out,  and  emptied  their  full  hearts  and  minds  ;  and  they 
saw  that  the  protracted  debates  on  the  Catholic  subject,  which 
succeeded  one  another  for  some  months  of  this  session,  were 
aiding  the  cause  more  than  any  transactions  of  all  previous 
years. 

By  the  bill  which  put  down  the  Catholic  Association,1  it  was 
declared  unlawful  for  all  political  associations  to  continue  their 
sittings,  by  adjournment  or  otherwise,  or  whether  in  full  sittings 
or  by  committee,  or  officers,  for  more  than  fourteen  days  ;  or  to 
levy  contributions  from  his  Majesty's  subjects,  or  from  any  de- 
scriptions of  them ;  or  for  any  such  societies  to  have  different 
branches,  or  to  correspond  with  other  societies,  or  to  exclude 
members  on  the  ground  of  religious  faith,  or  to  require  oaths  or 
di-clarations  otherwise  than  as  required  by  law.  As  soon  as  the 
parliament  rose —  that  is,  in  July  —  a  new  Catholic  commit- 
tee offered  a  plan  of  a  new  association  and  a  recom-  New  catholic 
mendation  to  the  Catholic  body  to  push  to  the  utmost  association, 
their  practice  of  petitioning  and  other  political  action,  by 
methods  independent  of  the  association,  as  the  law  now  forbade 
such  actio:i  within  it.  Suggestion  like  this  was,  in  fact,  action  ; 
and  nothing  was  gained  by  the  new  law  but  an  excellent  oppor- 
tunity for  setting  forth  the  strength  of  the  Catholic  cause. 

During  March,  Sir  F.  Burdett  introduced,  first,  a  debate  on 
*  kjfe  of  lyord  El<}on,  ii.  p.  538. 


456  HISTORY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [Boos  H, 

the  general  petition  of  the  Catholics ;  next,  a  set  of  resolutions 
Sir  F  BUT-  WQich  were  passed  as  the  foundation  of  a  r-lief  bill, 
dc«Ts  relief  which  went  through  the  stage  of  debate  in  the  Com- 
mons on  the  21st  of  April.  Mr.  O'Connell  declared,  in 
a  letter  which  found  its  way  into  the  newspapers,1  that  the  pivp- 
aration  of  the  draught  of  the  bill  had  been  committed  to  him. 
This  damaging  declaration  being  noticed  by  the  adverse  mem- 
bers of  the  cabinet,  was  emphatically  denied  by  the  committee, 
who  pledged  themselves  that  no  person  out  of  the  committee 
had  had  the  smallest  share  in  the  preparation  of  the  bill. 

This  bill  was  an  immediate  consequence  of  the  avowal  which 
the  friends  of  the  Catholics  had  found  themselves  bound  to  make 
in  the  preceding  debate  —  that  they  were  ready  to  support  the 
Catholic  claims  when  severed  from  their  connection  with  the 
association.  They  were  immediately  taken  at  their  word ;  and 
brilliant  was  the  result.  The  debating  was  magnificent,  or  rather 
the  outpouring  of  eloquence  on  one  side  ;  for  all  the  strength 
was  in  one  direction  ;  and  the  majority  by  which  the  bill  passed 
the  Commons  was  268  to  241. 2  The  bill  proposed  the  repeal  of 
disabilities ;  the  enactment  of  a  state  provision  for  the  Catholic 
clergy ;  and  the  raising  of  the  Irish  franchise  qualification  from 
40*.  to  10£  It  was  supposed  that  by  placing  the  first  of  these 
propositions  between  the  other  two  —  the  advantage  to  the  Cath- 
olics between  an  advantage  to  the  state  and  one  to  the  Protes- 
tant minority,  who  complained  of  being  swamped  by  the  Cath- 
olic majority  at  elections  —  the  bill  might  be  floated  through 
parliament.  The  two  latter  provisions  were  called  the  wings  of 
the  bill ;  bnt  they  proved  to  be  leaden  wings.  There  was  an 
outcry  against  both  provisions  too  strong  for  even  the  popular 
O'Connell,  who  held  the  peace  of  Ireland  in  his  band.  After 
having  boasted  that  the  bill  was  of  his  preparation,  he  could  not 
deny  his  agreement  to  the  obnoxious  propositions.  He  made 
a  recantation,  and  asked  pardon  of  God  and  his  country. 
Such  an  error  and  recantation  may  pass  for  once ;  and  O'Connelfs 
passed  for  this  time. 

After  the  division  on  the  second  reading  of  the  bill  in  the 
Dnke  rf  Commons,  the  heir  presumptive  made  a  bold  stroke 
York;*  dec-  in  the  Lords  to  obtain  its  rejection  there.  In  present- 
ing a  petition  from  the  dean  and  canons  of  Windsor 
against  the  Catholic  chums,  the  Duke  of  York  took  occasion  to 
declare  his  own  opinion  on  the  subject,  and  his  own  intentions  in 
ease  of  his  succeeding  to  the  crown.  He  laid  before  the  House 
the  case  of  the  late  King,  —  "  the  severe  illness,  and  ten  years 
of  misery  which  had  clouded  the  existence  of  his  illustrious  and 
beloved  father,"  on  account  of  the  scruples  of  his  co- science 
'  Annual  Register,  1825,  p.  54.  "•  IJansard,  xiii.  p.  123. 


CHAP.  X.]    DUKE  OF  YORK'S  SPEECH.  -  MR.  PLUNKET.    457 

about  the  coronation  oath  ;  he  declared  that  his  principle*  were 
the  same;  "and  that  these  were  the  principles  to  which  he 
would  adhere,  and  which  he  would  maintain  and  act  up  to,  to 
the  latest  moment  of  his  existence,  whatever  might  be  his  situ- 
ation of  life  —  so  help  him  God  !  " l  The  Lord  Chancellor  lis- 
tened with  delight,  and  wrote  out  the  speech  in  his  anecdote-book 
before  he  slept.  The  bigots  on  his  side  got  it  printed  in  gold 
letters,  and  framed  it  for  their  drawing-room  walls,  and  circu- 
lated it  through  the  country.  The  effect  produced  was  some- 
what different  from  what  was  intended  and  expected.  It  showed 
that  an  effort  must  be  made  to  secure  Catholic  emancipation 
during  the  life  of  the  present  King  ;  and  exertion  was  stimulated 
accordingly.  It  haj  pened,  too,  that  some  words  had  been 
spoken  on  the  other  side,  which  took  great  hold  of  the  public 
mind,  and  perhaps  spread  as  widely  as  the  declaration  of  the 
heir  presumpt  ve.  On  the  28th  of  February,  Mr.  Plunket  had 
said,  in  the  debate  on  Sir  F.  Burdett's  motion,  that  the  danger  to 
be  looked  in  the  face  was  not  the  danger  of  the  days  of  James 
II.,  but  of  the  present  time  ;  the  danger  of  exasperating  mill- 
ions of  fellow-subjects  excluded  from  their  rights.  The  bigot 
plea  was  of  the  danger  of  innovation;  but,  said  the  >peaker:8 
"  Time  was  the  greatest  innovator  of  all.  While  man  would 
sleep  or  stop  in  his  career,  the  course  of  time  was  rapidly  chang- 
ing the  aspect  of  all  human  affairs.  All  that  a  wise  government 
could  do  was  to  keep  as  close  as  possible  to  the  wings  of  time, 
to  watch  his  progress,  and  accommodate  his  motion  to  their 
flight.  Arrest  his  course  they  could  not;  but  they  might  vary 
the  forms  and  aspects  of  their  institutions,  so  as  to  reflect  his 
varying  aspects  and  forms.  If  this  were  not  the  spirit  which 
animated  them,  philosophy  would  be  impertinent,  and  history  no 
better  than  an  old  aim  mac.  The  riches  of  knowledge  would 
serve  them  no  better  than  the  false  money  of  a  swindler,  put 
upon  them  at  a  value  which  once  circulated,  but  ha'l  long  since 
ceased.  Prudence  and  experience  would  be  no  better  for  pro- 
tection than  dotage  and  error."  Lord  Eldon  was  persuaded 
that  these  words,  everlastingly  true,  were  aimed  at  a  speech  of 
his  about  the  Catholic^  of  the  time  of  Henry  VIII.,  '"  thinking 
it  proper8  to  treat  this  as  a  sort  of  speech  which  an  almanac- 
maker,  reciting  past  events,  might  make  ;  and  which,  therefore, 
might  deserve  no  answer."  But  the  sentiment  of  Mr.  Plunket's 
words  made  its  way.  "  Never,"  says  the  Chancellor.4  •'  was 
anything  like  the  sensation  the  Duke  of  York's  speech  has 

made I  hear  that  '  the  Duke  of  York  and  No  Popery '  is 

to  be  seen    in  various  parts.     The  Bi>hop  of  London  declared 

l  Annual  Register,  1825,  p.  60.  3  Hansard,  xii.  p.  808. 

*  Life  of  Lord  Eldou,  ii.  p.  520.  4  Ibid.  p.  546 


458  HISTORY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [BOOK  II. 

that  he  believed  —  speaking  when  he  delivered  a  petition  yes- 
terday—  'that  he  was  satisfied  nine  people  in  ten  in  the  city 
were  determinedly  adverse  to  the  claims  of  the  Roman  Catho- 
lics.' "  Yet  the  sentiment  of  Mr.  Plunket's  words  made  its 
way.  "  I  forgot  to  mention,"  writes  the  Chancellor,1  "  in  my  last, 
that  the  Commons  stared  me  yery  impudently  in  the  face,  when 
they  delivered  to  me  the  Catholic  bill  at  the  bar  of  the  House. 
This  bill,  however,  I  think  those  gentlemen  will  never  see  again." 
The  Lords  threw  out  the  bill  at  a  little  before  six  in  the 
morning  of  the  18th  of  May,  by  a  majority  of  48  in  a 
House  of  308.  "  Lady  Warwick  and  Lady  Braybrooke,"  writes 
the  Chancellor,2  "  would  not  let  their  husbands  go  to  the  House 
to  vote  for  the  Catholics  ;  so  we  Protestants  drink  daily,  as  our 
favorite  toast :  '  The  ladies  who  locked  up  their  husbands.' " 
"  The  glorious  forty-eight "  were  toasted  in  bumpers,  and  the 
victors  "  were  becoming  composed  after  their  triumphs;"  and 
still  the  sentiment  of  Mr.  Plunket's  words  was  making  its  way. 
The  temporary  defeat  took  place  on  Wednesday,  May  18th. 
On  the  Thursday,  "  Mr.  O'Connell,"  writes  the  Chancellor,8 
"  pleaded  as  a  barrister  before  me  in  the  House  of  Lords.  His 
demeanor  was  very  proper,  but  he  did  not  strike  me  as  shining 
so  much  in  argument  as  might  be  expected  from  a  man  who  has 
made  so  much  noise  in  his  harangues  in  a  seditious  association." 
The  Chancellor  forgot  that  a  cause  in  the  House  of  Lords  could 
hardly  be  so  inspiring  to  a  barrister  as  the  cause  of  his  country 
to  its  champion  ;  and  that  Mr.  O'Connell  might  easily  hold  him- 
self calm  and  commonplace  in  another  sphere,  while  in  his  own 
the  sentiment  of  Mr.  Plunket's  words  was  making  its  way. 

During  the  next   session,  that  of  1826,  nothing  was  done  in 
182  parliament  on  the  Catholic  question  beyond  the  pres- 

entation of  petitions.  The  Lords  had  declared  their 
opinion  decisively  enough,  for  the  present ;  and  in  the  Commons, 
it  was  understood  that  the  session  would  be  short,  in  view  of  the 
approaching  dissolution,  and  that  the  great  questions  of  the  time 
had  better  stand  over  for  the  consideration  of  the  new  parliament. 
Question  of  ^  ne  Catholic  petitions  were  chiefly  directed  to  meet 
divided  the  objection  of  the  supposed  divided  allegiance  of  the 
allegiance.  Catholics.  It  was  in  vain  attempting  to  meet  this 
objection  by  the  declaration,  however  extensively  confirmed,  that 
Catholics  held  an  undivided  allegiance  to  their  king  in  civil  affairs  : 
no  one  doubted  this.  The  objection  was,  that  their  spiritual 
allegiance  to  the  pope  might  at  any  time  interfere  with  their  civil 
allegiance  to  their  king.  The  true  way  of  meeting  this  objec- 
tion was  to  render  them  easy  and  satisfied.  If  the  pope  really 
wished  to  make  mischief  between  the  Catholics  and  the  British 
i  Life  of  Lord  Eldon,  ii.  p.  548.  2  ibid.  p.  554.  »  Ibid.  p.  553. 


CHAP.  X.]  CATHOLIC  AND  DISSENTERS.  459 

government,  he  could  do  it  very  effectually  already ;  and  with 
the  more  excuse  the  more  they  were  wronged.  To  keep  them 
in  a  state  of  exasperation  by  political  exclusion  was  not  the  way 
to  render  them  loyal,  but  ra'her  to  make  the  pope  their  partisan 
against  their  sovereign.  The  petitions  of  this  session  were 
therefore  of  little  use.  They  did  not  truly  meet  the  objection  of 
one  party,  and  were  not  needed  by  the  other. 

A  new  enmity  became  manifest  this  year.  The  Catholics  and 
the  Dissenters  drew  off  from  each  other.1  The  Dis-  catholics  and 
senters  were  themselves  suffering  under  disabilities  Disinters, 
which  might  naturally  dispose  them  to  sympathize  with  the 
Catholics,  and  to  work  in  their  behalf.  But  they  were,  gener- 
ally speaking,  lukewarm  in  tlie  cause.  It  is  not  difficult  to  under- 
stand this,  though  the  fact  is  not  an  agreeable  one  to  contemplate. 
Like  too  large  a  majority  of  mankind,  the  English  Dissenters 
could  feel  deeply  and  argue  clearly  about  the  rights  of  conscience, 
when  their  own  consciences  were  interfered  with,  but  be  too 
much  affected  by  fear  to  see  the  full  force  of  their  abstract  rea- 
sonings when  their  own  experience  was  not  concerned.  They 
were  Protestanis;  they  feared  the  pope  and  the  ravages  of  super- 
stition as  much  as  their  Protestant  brethren  within  the  Church 
pale ;  and  the  annual  Indemnity  Bill,  which  gave  them  practical 
freedom,  saved  them  from  sharing  the  exasperation  of  the  Cath- 
olics under  their  legal  disabilities.  And  they  were  not  united 
with  the  Catholics  in  any  hope  from  the  influence  of  Mr.  Can- 
ning ;  for  Mr.  Canning  was  as  openly  and  fixedly  their  adversary 
as  he  was  the  advocate  of  the  Catholics.  Mr.  Canning's  opposi- 
tion to  the  repeal  of  the  Test  Act  remains  a  rebuke  to  the  pride 
of  human  reason  and  to  the  confidence  of  hero-worship.  Those 
who  exultfd  in  his  clear  view  of  the  case  of  the  Catholics,  and 
his  soundly  principled  advocacy  of  their  claims,  were  perplexed 
and  abashed  by  his  indefensible  and  unaccountable  refusal  to 
apply  the  same  sagacity  and  the  same  principles  to  the  case  of 
the  disqualified  Dissenters.  And  it  was  not  for  Mr.  Canning  to 
complain  of  the  judgment  which  his  inconsistency  was  sure  to 
bring  upon  him  ;  nor  for  his  friends  to  wonder  and  lament  if, 
after  his  death,  such  speculations  as  that  of  Lord  Rossmore,  in  his 
"  Letter  on  Catholic  Emancipation,"  dishonored  his  memory,  as 
far  as  the  matter  went.2  "  Is  there  no  satisfactory  reason,"  says 
Lord  Rossmore,  "  why  a  mind  like  that  of  Mr.  Canning  should 
depart  from  his  own  general  principles  in  the  case  of  the  Dis- 
senters alone  ?  May  he  not  have  reasoned  thus?  If  I  concede 
the  wishes  of  the  Dissenters  separately,  may  I  not  weaken  (he 
common  cause  —  the  Di-senters  not  having  much  sympathy  with 
the  claims  of  the  Catholics  ?  But  if  I  carry  emancipation,  I 
1  Annual  Register,  1826,  p.  127.  2  Life  of  Canning,  p.  355. 


460  HISTOEY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [BOOK  II. 

secure  the  repeal  of  the  Test  and  Corporation  Acts  ;  for,  if  the 
former  succeeds,  the  latter  follows."  This  is  not  like  Canning  — 
such  a  method  of  coercing  one  set  of  people,  under  false  pretences, 
to  further  the  emancipation  of  another.  But,  if  this  was  not  his 
reason,  there  is  no  saying  what  was.  It  remains  a  painful  mys- 
tery. 

There  is  much  that  is  painful  in  the  survey  of  the  time  and 
The  eiec-  persons  under  our  present  notice.  The  Catholics  were 
tkms.  putting  forth  all  their  powers  in  preparation  for  the 

elections  ;  and  the  full  force  of  the  influence  of  the  priesthood  was 
brought  to  bear  xipon  the  forty-shilling  freeholders,  in  a  manner 
which  made  as  complete  a  mockery  of  the  representative  system 
as  was  ever  made  by  the  Irish  landlords,  who  had  covered  their 
domains  with  small  freeholds  for  their  political  convenience.1 
Some  of  this  class  of  Irish  landlords  were  ejecting  their  tenants 
by  wholesale,  for  their  obedience  to  the  priests  in  the  elections  ; 
and  the  new  Catholic  Association  was  voting  funds  for  the  relief 
of  the  people  thus  left  homeless.  The  Dissenters  were  holding 
off  from  aiding  the  Catholics  ;  and  the  Catholic  leaders  were 
reviling  the  Dissenters.  Mr.  Canning  was  doing  wrong  by  the 
one  body,  by  the  very  act  of  doing  right  by  the  other.  The 
Duke  of  York  was  endeavoring,  by  a  proceeding  of  extraordinary 
audacity,  to  achieve  the  dismissal  of  Mr.  Canning  from  the  cabi- 
net. He  was  naturally  animated  by  the  effect  his  speech  had 
produced  ;  and  he  saw,  as  every  one  else  did,  what  its  operation 
The  Duke  was  *n  stimulating  the  friends  of  the  Catholics  to 
of  York  and  obtain  their  emancipation  during  the  life  of  the  King. 
leKmg.  jje  j.Qok  Up0n  jjjm  now?  in  the  autumn  of  1826,  to 

address  the  King  2  on  the  subject  of  obtaining  unity  of  opinion  in 
the  cabinet  on  the  Catholic  question.  In  this  he  was  not  likely 
to  succeed,  after  his  attempt  on  the  royal  feelings  in  his  late 
speech.  The  King  had  observed  on  that  speech,8  in  a  good- 
humored  way,  that  the  duke  might  have  left  out  his  reference  to 
his  possible  accession  to  the  throne,  as  its  present  occupant  did 
not  mean  to  quit  it.  Preserving  his  good-humor,  he  still  would 
hardly  relish  the  duke's  interference  with  the  opinions  and  con- 
stitution of  his  cabinet.  But  it  was  unnecessary  to  do  more  than 
keep  quiet,  in  relation  to  the  duke  ;  for  it  was  becoming  clear 
that  he  would  never  more  influence  the  politics  of  England,  or 
any  other  human  affairs.  To  complete  the  circle  of  wrong-doers, 
Mr.  O'Connell  was  treating  the  illness  of  the  Duke  of  York  in 
the  following  style  : 4  "  I  wish  no  physical  ill  to  the  royal  duke  ; 
but  if  he  has  thrown  his  oath  in  the  way  of  our  liberties,  and 
that  as  long  as  he  lives  justice  shall  not  be  done  to  the  people  of 

1  Annual  Register,  1826,  p.  173.  2  Life  of  Canning,  p.  357. 

8  Life  of  Lord  Eldon,  ii.  p.  547-  *  Annual  Register,  1826,  p.  126. 


UHAP.  X.]  ASPECT  OF  THE   QUESTION.  48! 

Ireland,  it  is  mockery  to  tell  me  that  the  people  of  Ireland  have 
not  an  interest  in  his  ceasing  to  live.  Death  is  the  corrector  of 
human  errors;  it  is  said  to  be  man's  hour  for  repentance,  and 
God's  opportunity.  If  the  royal  duke  should  not  become  con- 
verted from  his  political  errors,  I  am  perfectly  resigned  to  the 
will  of  God,  and  shall  abide  the  result  with  the  most  Christian 
resignation."  This  declaration  was  received  with  "  laughter  and 
cheers."  To  this  pass  were  men  brought  —  to  such  a  state  of 
principle  and  temper  as  this,  all  round,  by  the  protraction  of  in- 
jury to  one  class  of  fellow-subjects.  The  consolation  \\as  in  the 
moral  certainty  that  an  effectual  change  could  not  be  far  off.  On 
the  whole,  the  anti-Catholic  interest  seemed  to  have  Aspect  of 
gained  most  in  the  elections;  but  some  great  single  the  question, 
victories  had  been  obtained  on  the  side  of  emancipation  ;  and  the" 
power  of  the  Catholic  Association  had  been  so  effectually  proved, 
by  the  expulsion  of  the  Beresfords  from  the  representation  of 
their  own  tenantry,  and  in  some  other  instances,  that  it  was  clear 
that  the  struggle  could  not  now  end  by  any  other  means  than 
being  brought  to  an  issue.  It  was  becoming  clear  that  the  Duke 
of  York  would  never  reach  the  throne  ;  and  a  general  belief  was 
arising  that  the  cabinet  was  hi  process  of  conversion  to  the  views 
of  Mr.  Canning.  There  was  a  persuasion,  on  the  whole,  preva- 
lent in  the  country,  that  this  new  parliament  was  the  last  which 
would  be  occupied  with  the  discussion  of  the  Catholic  question. 


4«2  HISTORY  OF  THE  PEACE.  {Boos  II. 


CHAPTER  XL 

IN  the  course  of  the  last  three  sessions  of  this  parliament,  a 
Chancery  re-  reform  was  begun  which  the  nation  had  for  some  time 
form.  1823.  been  peremptorily  demanding  ;  by  its  discontents,  yet 
more  than  by  its  express  petitions.  The  delny  of  justice  in  the 
Court  of  Chancery  had  become  insufferable ;  and  the  time  was 
come  for  proof  whether  the  grievance  could  not,  be  amended. 
Perhaps  no  narrative  of  a  process  of  reform  is  more  instructive 
than  this,  in  showing  how  that  inexorable  Fate  —  the  spirit  of 
reform,  evoked  by  grievance  —  compasses  its  end,  through  all 
obstructions  of  human  error  and  ignorance,  human  will,  and  even 
human  conscience,  when  that  conscience  is  deficient  in  enlighten- 
ment. Among  the  movers  against  the  evils  of  the  Court  of 
Chancery  were  some  men  who  were  not  lawyers,  and  who  there- 
fore naturally  stated  their  case  ignorantly  ;  and  there  were  some 
who  were  trained  and  practised  in  a  different  department  of  the 
law,  and  who  were  therefore  ridiculed  by  equity  lawyers  for 
errors  in  the  object  and  expression  of  their  complaint.  The 
strong,  united  will  of  the  cabinet  and  of  the  equity  lawyers  was 
opposed  to  all  entrance  upon  the  subject.  And  the  conscience 
of  the  Chancellor  was  so  satisfied  with  the  existing  state  of  things, 
that  it  resented  any  question  of  them  ;  and,  at  the  same  time,  so 
tender,  that  it  winced  under  any  inquiry  into  the  discharge  of 
business,  as  under  a  personal  injury.  Yet  the  inquiry  went  on> 
because  it  had  become  necessary.  The  Chancellor's  friends 
laughed  at  the  complaint  of  the  locking  up  of  large  funds  in 
Chancery  for  half  a  century  together,  alleging  the  cases  in  which 
property  was  truly  in  ward,  and  the  dividends  punctually  paid  ; 
but  there  were  cases  in  which  no  proceeds  could  be  obtained. 
The  Chancellor  and  his  friends  scorned  the  complaints  of  the 
expenses  of  the  court,  showing  that  his  income  had  never  ex- 
ceeded a  certain  amount ;  but  the  expenses  were  intolerable  not- 
withstanding. The  government  clearly  proved  an  enormous  in- 
crease of  Chancery  business  within  a  certain  term,  and  avouched 
the  industry  of  Lord  Eldon  ;  but  it  remained  true,  and  unendur- 
able, that  suitors  could  not  get  their  business  settled.  The  Chan- 
cellor and  his  friends  called  the  complainants  "  ignorant  fellows  " 


CHAP.  XI.]  CHANCERY  REFORM.  463 

and  "  malicious  rascals  ; "  and  the  complainants  called  the  Lord 
Chancellor  "  a  curse  to  the  country  ; "  yet,  amidst  their  aliena- 
tion, they  worked  together,  under  that  inexorable  Fate  —  the 
spirit  of  reform,  evoked  by  grievance.  Thus  it  always  happens, 
and  must  happen ;  and  it  would  be  well  if  we  could  learn  from 
such  histories  to  assume  the  certainty  of  reform,  after  any  mani- 
festation of  grievance,  and  to  see  the  absurdity  of  all  violence, 
all  loss  of  temper  on  any  hand,  in  the  prosecution  of  a  work 
which  pays  no  heed  to  our  infirmities. 

On  the  4th  of  June,  1823,1  Mr.  John  Williams,  afterwards  one 
of  the  judges  of  the  Queen's  Bench,  moved  for  an  opening  of 
inquiry  into  the  arrear  of  business  in  the  Court  of  iu<iuiry- 
Chancery,  and  the  appellate  jurisdiction  of  the  House  of  Lords, 
and  the  causes  thereof.  "It  now  seemed  to  be  conceded  on  all 
hands,"  the  mover  declared,  "  that  evils  of  no  ordinary  magni- 
tude existed,  and  that  the  present  system  could  no  longer  go  on 
without  some  amendment  or  improvement."  It  appears  that  the 
Chancellor  himself  was  of  the  same  mind  with  other  people,  as 
to  the  necessity  of  inquiry ; 2  for,  within  a  month  of  Mr.  Wil- 
liams's  motion,  he  communicated  to  the  House  of  Lords  his 
purpose  of  having  a  commission  to  inquire  whether  any,  and 
what  improvements  could  be  made  in  the  administration  of  the 
Court  of  Chancery.  Yet,  his  wrath  against  the  inquirers  in 
the  House  of  Commons  seems  to  show  that  he  would  hardly 
have  stirred  at  this  time,  if  they  had  not  stimulated  him  to  do  so. 
Throughout  the  whole  affair,  which  extended  over  several  years, 
he  appears  to  have  been  unable,  for  a  single  moment,  to  regard 
it  as  anything  but  a  personal  matter.  The  complainants  divided 
their  informations  into  two  parts :  those  which  regarded  the 
faulty  constitution  or  arrangements  of  the  courts,  and  those  which 
related  to  the  quality  of  the  Chancellor's  mind,  in  which  the 
tendency  to  doubt  had  become  so  strong  as  to  overbear  the  fine 
faculties  and  attainments  which  otherwise  fitted  him  eminently 
for  his  office.  The  debate  on  Mr.  Williams's  motion  continued 
for  two  nights,  and  brought  out  enough  of  fact  and  opinion  to 
assure  the  ministers  that  the  subject  would  not  drop  till  some- 
thing was  done.  Their  plea  of  the  vast  increase  of  Chancery 
business  availed  only  to  prove  that  matters  could  not  go  on  as 
they  were ;  and  a  broad  hint  to  this  effect  was  given  in  the  intro- 
duction of  a  discussion  about  separating  the  judicial  and  political 
functions  of  the  Lord  Chancellor. 

In  the  House  of  Lords  it  had  been  sugzested  in  the  preceding 
April  *  to  alter  the  method  of  hearing  appeals  there  ;  Movement  in 
and  it  was  proposed  by  Lord  Liverpool,  on  the  26th  the  lMt^- 

l  Hansard,  ix.  706.  a  Life  of  Lord  Eldon,  ii.  p.  488. 

•  Annual  Register,  1823,  p.  93. 


464  HISTORY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [BOOK  IL 

of  June,  that  a  deputy  speaker  of  the  House  of  Lords  should  be 
appointed,  and  that  five  days  in  the  week,  instead  of  three,  should 
be  devoted  to  the  hearing  of  appeals.  The  arrangement  was 
made  ;  but  the  Chancellor  could  not  let  the  occasion  pass  with- 
out entering  upon  an  exhibition  of  self  assertion  and  self-defence, 
which  not  only  lowered  his  dignity,  and  engaged  the  compassion 
of  parliament,  but  proved  to  the  movers  in  the  question  of 
Chancery  reform  that  it  must  inevitably  be  made  a  personal 
matter,  as  the  Chancellor  chose  to  regard  it  so ;  and  the  bicker- 
ings and  evil-speaking  which  hence  arose  became  very  painful, 
and  damaging  alike  to  the  character  of  the  court  and  the  prog- 
ress of  the  question. 

As   the  next  session  (of   1824)  approached,  the    Chancellor 
1824  grew  uneasy,  in  apprehension  of  the  renewal  of  the 

subject ;  and  he  applied  to  Mr.  Peel  for  the  full 
support  and  protection  of  the  cabinet.1  Mr.  Williams' s  motion 
was  brought  forward  on  the  24th  of  February.  Lord  Eldon 
observes  upon  it  that  every  moment  of  negligence  in  an  official 
course  of  twenty-two  years  was  noted ;  and  that  many  of  the 
complaints  were  perfectly  new  to  him  and  his  friends  —  an 
evident  benefit  already  arising  from  the  discussion,  and  a  clear 
reason  for  prosecuting  the  inquiry.  In  answer  to  the  motion  for 
Government  a  committee,  Mr.  Peel  moved  for  a  commission,  such 
moves  for  a  as  the  Chancellor  had  proposed  after  the  debate  of 
I0n'  the  previous  summer.  This  was  what  was  wanted,  or 
something  very  like  it ;  and  Mr.  Williams  therefore  withdrew  his 
motion.  The  Chancellor's  own  account  of  the  matter  is  curious. 
"  At  my  instance,  therefore,2  Mr.  Peel,  in  a  most  admirable 
speech,  moved  for  such  a  commission,  as  a  great  merit  on  my  part 
in  aiming  at  improvement,  instead  of  this  committee  of  ven- 
geance ;  and  this  threw  Mr.  Williams,  &c.,  upon  their  backs,  and 
they  did  not  venture  to  divide.  So,  for  the  present,  this  storm 
is  over,  and  matters  will  be  tolerable  till  the  next  begins  to  rage." 

Here  was  his  mistake,  in  thinking  himself  at  liberty  to  stand 
still  as  soon  as  his  enemies,  as  he  called  them,  were  quieted  by 
the  pledges  of  his  friends.  As  soon  as  the  results  were  called 
for,  he  considered  it  a  new  onslaught  of  the  foe,  and  fortified 
himself  in  obstinacy  accordingly,  so  as  to  place  his  colleagues  in 
a  situation  of  great  difficulty.  He  gives  his  view  in  a  letter  8  of 
the  date  of  February  28,  1824.  "  The  fact  is,  from  year  to  year, 
party  is  attempting  to  drive  me  out  of  the  Chancellorship.  God 
knows  I  should  be  very  happy  if  I  had  nothing  to  do  with  it. 
If  these  malignant  attacks  had  not  been  made  against  me,  year 
after  year,  I  should  have  been  in  retirement ;  but  to  hatred, 
malice,  and  uncharitableness,  I  will  not  give  way.  I  will  not 
1  Life  of  Lord  Eldon,  ii.  p.  487.  a  Ibid.  p.  488.  »  Ibid.  p.  490. 


CHAP.  XL]  ORDER  OF  THE   COMMONS.  465 

gratify  those  who  revile  me.  My  rule  through  life  has  been  to 
do  what  I  think  right,  and  to  leave  the  consequences  to  God." 
Strange  words  these  last  —  given  in  the  same  breath  with  the 
declaration  that  he  remained  in  office  onlv  because  others  wished 
him  out  of  it !  And  this  pettishness  and  self-will  became  nothing 
less  than  shocking  when  we  consider  on  whom  the  eyes  and 
minds  of  the  movers  in  parliament  were  really  fixed :  not  on 
an  aged  judge,  whom  they  wished  to  insult  and  displace  from 
gratuitous  malice  ;  but  on  the  impoverished  orphan,  the  sunken 
widow,  the  broken-spirited  gentleman,  whose  lives  were  passed 
in  vain  hope,  or  listless  despair,  of  getting  justice  from  the 
court  which  assumed  to  be  their  protector.  It  was  impossible 
to  think  much  of  Lord  Eldon's  complacencies,  or  tears,  or  self- 
pity,  while  vast  estates  lay  waste  and  weed-grown,  and  whole 
tenantries  sank  down  into  pauperism  under  the  blight  of  the 
Court  of  Chancery. 

In  the  session  of  1825,  it  had  become  apparent  that  the  stir 
had  not  been  without  its  use.  It  was  now  admitted 
on  all  hands  that  improvement  was  needed.  The 
commission  of  the  preceding  year  had  collected  a  vast  amount 
of  evidence,  but  had  not  reported.  There  wa<  a  demand  in  the 
Commons  that  the  evidence  should  be  printed,  without  waiting 
for  the  report,  —  a  demand  which  was,  of  course,  unacceptable 
to  the  Lord  Chancellor  and  the  other  members  of  the  govern- 
ment. The  correspondence  between  the  Premier  and  the  Chan- 
cellor on  this  occasion  shows  how  urgent  the  demand  for  Chan- 
cery reform  had  become,  and  how  much  more  important  it  was 
than  it  could  have  been  rendered  by  any  mere  enmity  against 
the  judge  of  the  court.  Meantime,  that  judge  was  strength- 
ening himself  against  his  enemies,  instead  of  making  them  friends 
by  working  with  them  in  a  good  cause.  "  Lord  Stowell,"  he 
says,1  "  called  on  Wednesday  very  kindly  to  express  his  hope 
that  Williams  and  Co.  had  not  on  Tuesday  disturbed  my  peace 

of  mind.     They  certainly  did  not But,  thank  God,  I  am 

well  in  health,  and  in  mind  I  grow  more  easy  and  callous."  The 
correspondence  with  the  Premier  took  place  on  occa-  order  of  the 
sion  of  an  order  recorded  in  the  journal  of  the  Com-  Commons, 
mons,  on  the  30th  of  June,  "  that  there  be  laid  before  this  House 
a  list  of  all  causes  that  have  been  heard  by  the  Lord  Chancellor, 
during  the  last  eighteen  years,  wherein  judgment  has  not  yet 
been  given,  specifying  the  time  when  heard ;  comprising  all 
petitions  in  cases  of  bankruptcy,  already  heard,  but  not  decided." 
The  Chancellor  was  highly  incensed,  and  applied  to  the  min- 
isters for  information  why  such  an  order  should  have  been 
permitted  to  pass,  and  whether  or  not  he  was  to  be  protected  by 

1  Life  of  Lord  Eldon,  ii.  p.  556. 
VOL.  n.  30 


466  HISTORY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [BOOK  IL 

his  colleagues.  His  colleagues  advised  him  to  despise  his  ene- 
mies, and  to  keep  quiet.  But  he  could  do  neither ;  as  he 
avowed  in  a  letter  to  Lord  Liverpool  in  the  following  Novem- 
ber,1 in  which  he  repeated  his  complaints  and  demands,  conclud- 
ing with  a  threat  of  retiring  on  the  meeting  of  parliament. 
Lord  Liverpool's  reply  2  advises  the  Chancellor  to  wait  at  least 
till  the  obnoxious  motions  should  be  renewed ;  declares  the  in- 
tention of  the  ministers  to  oppose  it,  by  the  mouth  of  Mr.  Peel ; 
adding :  "  But  in  order  to  make  it  possible  for  him  to  carrv  his 
Commission  mtenti°n  njto  effect,  the  report  of  the  commission  of 
urged  to  re-  inquiry  must  be  ready,  and  be  laid  before  parliament 

immediately  upon  its  meeting Let  me  entreat 

you,  therefore,  to  spare  no  effort  for  the  completion  of  this 
report  without  further  delay.  It  is  really  become  a  question  of 
vital  importance,  and  there  is  no  inconvenience  that  ought  not  to 
be  incurred  lor  the  attainment  of  this  object.  Independent  of  the 
complaint  of  neglect,  and  of  the  suspicion  which  the  very  delay 
in  making  the  report  occasions,  the  report  is  really  necessary,  in 
order  to  enable  ministers  in  the  House  of  Commons  to  resist 
effectually  the  unjustifiable  attacks  daily  made  upon  the  Court 

of  Chancery I  hope  I  do  not  appear  to  press  thi-i  matter 

with  too  much  importunity  ;  but  I  am  so  deeply  sensible  of  its 
importance,  that  I  should  not  do  my  duty  if  I  did  not  urge  it  in 
the  strongest  manner.  Let  us  but  have  the  report,  and  all  other 
difficulties  may  be  fairly  encountered ;  but  without  that,  no 
person,  in  the  present  heated  state  of  the  public  mind  upon  the 
subject,  can  answer  for  the  consequence." 

In  truth,  while  the  Chancellor  was  thanking  God  that  he  was 
well  in  health,  and  growing  more  easy  and  callous  in  mind  every 
day,  the  same  was  far  from  being  the  case  with  the  imprisoned 
debtors,  the  impoverished  widows  and  orphans,  and  the  broken- 
spirised  gentlemen,  who  were  suffering  under  the  practical  denial 
of  justice  by  his  court.  The  damp  was  spreading  in  the  houses, 
and  the  weeds  growing  in  the  fields  of  the  estates  shut  up  by  his 
delays  ;  and  the  work-houses  were  receiving  more  and  more  of 
the  paupers  who  ought  to  have  been  cheerful  laborers  on  those 
estates.  The  introduction  of  the  subject  into  parliament  twc 
years  before  had  roused  some  hope  ;  and  with  hope  came  rest- 
lessness, and  the  deferred  hope  was  becoming  as  dangerous  as 
the  Premier  intim  ited  in  his  letter. 

On  the  18th  of  April,  a  petition  from  one  of  the  sufferers  was 
1826    Peti-     presented  to  the  House,  and  another  on  the  "2 1st ;  and 
dons  and        on  both  occasions  the  court  and  the  judge  were  at- 
tacked with  great    vehemence.3     Instead  of  retiring, 

1  Life  of  Lord  Eldon,  ii.  p.  561.  *  Ibid.  p.  564. 

3  Hansard,  xv.  pp.  298,  535. 


CHAP.  XI.]  REPORT   OF  COMMISSIONERS.  467 

however,  as  Lord  Elclon  had  declared  his  intention  of  doing,  on 
occasion  of  the  expected  stir,  he  preferred  keeping  himself  "  easy 
and    callous."     '•  The    Chancellor,"  says  his  biographer,1    "  was 
now  become  so  far  familiar  with  these  annoyances  as  to  endure 
them  with  considerable  good-humor"  —  a  good-humor  which  was 
not  reciprocated  by  the  other  parties  in  the  case,  in  the  jail  and 
the  work-house,  and  among  the  damps  and  weeds  of  dilapidated 
mansions.     There  was  hope  for  them,  however.     The  Commis- 
sioners'  Report  was  ready;  and  it  not  only  declared   j^  ortof 
that  the  Court  of  Chancery  had  faults,  and  was  capable   couunis- 
of  great  improvement,  but  offered  187  propositions,  con-   810ners- 
taining  the  alterations  in  the  practice  of  the  courts  which  might, 
in  the  opinion  of  the  commissioners,  be  adopted  with  advantage. 
As  it  was  known  tliat  the  Attorney-General  was  to  introduce  a 
bill  founded  on  the  report,  the  subject  was  dropped  fora  month,  but 
not  till  the  opinion  of  the  public  was  effectually  declared  and  re- 
corded in  the  House,  and  in  the  reports  of  its  debates.     That  opin- 
ion, at  the  date  of  its  utterance,  is  an  item  of  history  which  ought 
not  to  be  passed  over.     It  may  be  most  briefly  conveyed  in  the 
words  of  Mr.   Grenfell,  spoken  on  the  18th  of  April,-  after  some 
clamor  in  the  House  against   Mr.  Hume,  who  had  said  that  he 
thought  it  the  greatest  curse  that  ever  fell  on  any  nation  to  have 
such    a    Chancellor,    and   such   a    Court   of  Chancery,   as   this 
country  was  visited  with.     "  Mr.  Grenfell  said  that  he  was  not 
in  the  Mouse  when  the  words  which  caused  this  discussion  were 
used.     If  his  honorable  friend  had  stated  that  the  Lord  Chan- 
cellor was  a  curse  to  the  country,  he  had  done  that  which  was 
not  altogether  becoming  in  him,  or  any  other  member,  to  do. 
If  his  honorable  friend  had  said  that  the  Court  of  Chancery  was 
a  curse  to  the  country,  he  had  stated  that  which  no  man  con- 
versant with  the  subject  could  deny.     It  was  only  stating  the 
current  opinion  of  ninety-nine  men  out  of  every  hundred.     And 
he    would    tell    the   House  the  reason  he  had  for  holding    that 
sentiment.     It  was  because,  by  the  practice  of  that  court,  a  rich 
man  was  enabled  to  oppress,  injure,  and  ruin  a  poor  man.     It 
was  a  mere  engine  of  oppression  ;  and,  constituted  as  that  court 
was,  it   was  not  too  much  to  say  that   it  was   a  curse  to    the 
coutrry."     This  being,  in  the  general  opinion,  the  state  of  the 
case,  the  187  propositions  of  the  commissioners  might  not  be  too 
many  for  the  reforms  needed.     One  of  the  hopeful  and  pleasant 
circumstances  connected  witii  the  presentation  of  the  report  was 
the  testimony  which   it  brought  out  to  the  conduct  of  the  Chan- 
cellor during  the  preparation  of  the  work.     It  showed  what  he 
could   do    when    his    mind  was  turned  from  its  self-regards   to 
business  of  real  interest  and  importance.     Dr.  Lushington  de- 
1  Life  of  Lord  Eldou,  ii.  p.  567.  2  Hansard,  xv.  300. 


468  HISTOEY  OF   THE   PEACE.  [BOOK  II. 

dared  l  that,  from  the  beginning  to  the  end  of  the  investigation, 
the  Lord  Chancellor  had  afforded  the  most  material  assistance  to 
the  commissioners.  His  connection  with  the  commissioners  had 
left  "  a  most  favorable  impression  with  regard  to  the  learning, 
intelligence,  and  integrity  of  the  noble  lord.  So  far  from  ever 
seeking  to  check  inquiry,  he  had  done  everything  to  promote  and 
forward  it." 

The  chief  complaint  made,  in  the  House  and  out  of  it,  about 
the  report  Avas,  that  it  passed  over  in  silence  the  causes  of  past 
delays  of  justice.  This  was  believed  by  some  to  be  attributa- 
ble to  the  Chancellor's  influence.  There  is  little  doubt  that  it 
arose  from  the  tacit  agreement  in  all  minds,  that  these  delays 
T  A  ™A  were  caused  by  the  peculiar  quality  of  Lord  Eldon's 

Lord  Eldon.          .  t      •       •  •  i  •   i 

mind  ;  that  hesitation  and  over-caution  which  made 
him,  in  his  own  time,  the  popular  personification  of  doubt,  and 
which  made  him,  in  his  judicial  capacity,  so  strange  a  contrast 
with  himself  in  his  political  function,  where  he  appeared  rash  in 
the  extreme,  in  the  obstinacy  of  his  dogmatism.  In  his  judicial 
function,  where  his  business  was  to  decide,  he  was  ever  doubtful 
and  hesitating ;  while,  in  his  political  function,  wherein  he  was 
called  upon  rather  to  confer  than  to  decide,  he  was  to  the  last 
degree  oracular  and  peremptory.  This  was  understood  by  every- 
body ;  and  the  commissioners  relied  upon  that  knowledge.  It 
was  also  understood  by  everybody,  that  it  was  too  late  now  to 
alter  the  quality  of  the  Chancellor's  mind.  It  was  known  that 
he  was  seventy-four  years  of  age,  and  that  he  must  soon  surren- 
der the  seals  either  to  the  King  or  to  the  King  of  kings ;  and  it 
was  hoped  that  a  decorous  silence  on  this  point  might,  without 
injury,  be  preserved,  from  due  respect  to  the  gray  hairs  of  the 
old  judge.  Dr.  Lushington  passed  over  this  point  as  lightly  as 
he  could.  He  observed,2  that  "  any  person  who  read  the  evi- 
dence would  see  that  every  witness  was  asked  what  was  the 
cause  of  the  delay,  and  also  what  were  the  best  remedies  for  it. 
He  was  aware  that  some  of  them  had  felt  great  reluctance  to 
answer  that  question  ;  but  he  contended  that  the  commissioners 
could  not  have  gone  further,  unless  they  had  purposely  sought 
for  matter  to  criminate  the  Lord  Chancellor.  Having  said  thus 
much,  he  would  proceed." 

It  was  on  the  18th  of  May  that  the  Attorney-General  moved 
BUI  pro-  for  leave  to  bring  in  his  Chancery  Reform  Bill, 
posed.  founded  upon  the  report  of  the  commissioners.  It 

was  not  discussed,  as  the  dissolution  of  parliament  was  known 
to  be  at  hand  ;  and  it  was  understood  that  the  motion  proposed 
merely  to  lay  the  subject  before  the  country,  and  recommend  it 
to  the  succeeding  parliament.  Some  correspondence  among  the 
1  Hansard,  xv  p.  1256.  2  Ibid.  p.  1256. 


CHAP.  XL]         JURORS   IN  INDIA.  —  FINANCE.  469 

ministers  in  the  course  of  the  autumn  shows,  not  only  their  will- 
inirne«s  to  carry  through  such  reform  as  i-hould  be  decided  on  by 
the  new  parliament,  but  their  anxiety  to  be  ready  for  coopera- 
tion by  having  the  requisite  funds  provided,  or  offered  for  pur- 
poses of  compensation  under  the  new  arrangements  which  were 
contemplated.  Thus  was  the  great  question  of  Chancery  reform 
not  only  stirred,  in  the  course  of  these  three  years,  but  brought 
up  to  the  point  of  legislative  action  before  the  dissolution  of  the 
expiring  parliament. 

Little  more  was  done  than  has  been  already  shown,  during 
thj  last  session  of  this  parliament.  The  session  was  shortened 
by  the  approaching  dissolution;  and  men's  minus  had  little  lib- 
erty from  the  engrossing  subjects  of  the  commercial  crisis  and 
the  Catholic  question.  Many  topics  were  more  or  less  fully  dis- 
cussed ;  but  their  issues  lay  in  future  years.  One  decision,  how- 
ever, was  made,  with  regard  to  the  administration  of  jurors  in 
justice  in  India,  which  is  important  enough  to  be  re-  India 
corded.  By  the  words  of  the  law,  all  British  subjects  were  com- 
petent to  serve  on  juries  in  India  ;  but,  by  a  custom  now  become 
too  deeply  rooted  to  be  overthrown  but  by  an  express  law,  the 
half-caste  population  of  India,  now  very  numerous,  were  held 
disqualified  as  jurors,  under  the  idea  that  they  were  not  British 
subjects.  By  a  bill  passed  this  session,1  all  "  good  and  sufficient " 
re-idents  were  declared  competent  to  serve  on  juries  —  with  the 
one  reservation,  that  only  Christian  jurors  should  sit  on  the 
trials  of  Christians.  Prejudice  is  ever  stronger  than  law ;  and 
time  and  enlightenment  must  be  waited  for  before  our  dark- 
skinned  fellow-subjects  in  India  could  enjoy  their  due  equality  in 
the  administration  of  justice  ;  but  the  law  had  now  done  what  it 
could  in  declaring  the  rights  of  the  half-caste  population  ;  and 
further  benefit  might  be  hoped  for,  from  occasion  being  taken,  by 
the  introduction  of  the  bill,  to  point  attention  to  the  good  done 
in  Ceylon,  by  the  free  admission  of  natives  to  serve  on  juries, 
under  the  administration  of  Sir  Alexander  Johnston. 

With  regard  to  matters  of  finance,  there  was  rather  more  than 
the  usual  amount  of  variation  between  the  pictures 
offered  by  the  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer  and  oppo- 
sition members.  In  the  midst  of  the  unquestionable  and  fearful 
distress  of  182(5,  the  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer  continued  to 
attract  to  himself  his  nickname  of  Prosperity  Robinson.  Every 
session  —  no  matter  whether  the  political  weather  was  lair  <>r 
foul  —  lie  came  down  to  the  House  exulting  in  his  budg«  t ;  ex- 
ulting that  his  most  sanguine  expectations  had  been  surpassed, 
or  that  his  calculations  had  been  unaffected  by  the  misfortunes 
of  the  times.  The  opposition  members  answered  him  with 
i  Annual  Register,  1826,  p.  163. 


470  HISTORY   OF  THE  PEACE.  [Boon  II. 

words  of  lamentation  and  foreboding :  lamentation  at  the  deteri- 
Diversecon-  orating  condition  of  the  working  classes,  arid  forebod- 
ciusions.  jrigS  tnat  they  would  sink  yet  further,  under  the  pres- 
sure of  taxation.  Superficial  readers  and  hearers  were  amazed  at 
so  wide  a  difference  of  statement  on  what  appeared  to  be  a  matter 
of  figures.  But  figures  have  no  more  chance  of  being  right  than 
the  merest  conjectures,  unless  the  premises  on  which  they  are  to 
operate  are  well  ascertained  and  agreed  upon  ;  and  the  Chancellor 
of  the  Exchequer  and  his  critics  proceeded  from  different  prem- 
ises, and  resorted  to  different  tests  to  discover  the  real  condition 
of  the  country.  Mr.  Robinson  had  taken  off  taxes :  all  agreed 
that  this  was  well.  He  had  found  that  the  reduced  taxes  had 
yielded  more  revenue  just  in  proportion  to  their  reduction  :  wise 
men  agreed  that  this  was  natural  and  right.  He  gloried  in  the 
excess  of  revenue  above  his  calculations,  and  proceeded  to  take 
off  more  taxes ;  wise  men  agreed  to  his  proceeding,  but  ques- 
tioned the  grounds  of  his  exultation.  He  argued,  from  the  in- 
crease in  the  revenue,  a  vast  improvement  in  the  condition  of 
the  people  —  an  improvement  commensurate  with  the  increase 
of  revenue :  and  here  wise  men  thought  him  wrong.  The  dif- 
ference was,  that  Mr.  Robinson  compared  the  yield  of  the  rev- 
enue merely  with  its  yield  in  former  years.  His  opponents  con- 
sidered also  the  great  increase  in  the  number  of  consumers. 
And  a  wide  difference  it  was  that  there  was  room  for  here.  All 
who  took  this  element  into  their  calculations,  thought  Mr.  Rob- 
inson wrong ;  some  believed  that  the  condition  of  the  people  was, 
on  the  whole,  actually  deteriorating ;  some  that  it  was  only  not 
improving;  some  that  it  was  improving  more  slowly  than  it 
ought  to  do ;  and  nowhere  was  any  party  found  to  sympathize 
fully  in  the  exultation  of  the  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer  at 
this  time.  After  the  census  of  1831,  it  was  found  that,1  taking 
the  nation  all  round,  each  person  consumed  one  seventh  more  of 
the  necessaries  and  comforts  of  life  which  come  under  the  heads 
of  taxation,  than  at  the  beginning  of  the  century ;  this  small 
improvement  having  taken  place  chiefly  during  the  latter  years 
of  this  period.  Such  a  fact  is  full  of  promise  and  satisfaction  in 
itself;  but  the  proportion  of  it  which  was  true  in  1826  would 
have  been  grievously  disappointing  to  the  Chancellor  of  the 
Exchequer  —  disappointing  to  his  benevolence,  even  more  than 
to  his  pride. 

The  reductions  which  the  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer  found 
Taxes  re-  himself  enabled  lo  propose  in  18252  were  on  hemp, 
duced.  coffee,  wine,  spirits,  and  cider,  and  some  of  the  as- 

sessed taxes  which  pressed  on  industry,  and  on  the  comfort  of  the 
working  classes ;   among  which,  the  most   important   were   the 
1  Porter's  Progress  of  the  Nation,  c.  iii.  p.  307.  2  Hansard,  xii.  p.  743. 


CHAP.  XI.]    MOTION  ON  STATE  OF  THE  COUNTRY.       471 

house  tax  on  inhabited  houses  under  101.  rent,  and  the  window 
duty  on  houses  not  having  more  than  seven  windows.  An 
effort  was  made  by  Mr.  Hobhouse1  to  get  the  whole  window 
duty  repealed  ;  but  this  pernicious  and  most  indefensible  tax  still 
subsists.  These  taxes  together  amounted  to  a  little  more  than  a 
million  and  a  half.  In  1826,  March  13,  when  the  country  was 
in  a  very  suffering  state,  and  when  parliament  was  about  to  be 
dissolved,  the  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer  passed  in  review 
our  whole  financial  system  for  the  preceding  ten  years,2  declaring 
that  there  had  been  a  reduction  of  taxation  to  the  amount  of 
twenty-seven  millions  and  a  half  since  the  peace.  Some  oppo- 
sition members  —  Mr.  Maberley,  Mr.  Hume,  and  Mr.  Hobhouse 
the  foremost  —  protested  against  the  statement  that  there  had 
been  any  reduction  at  all ;  the  increase  in  the  number  of  tax- 
payers so  far  exceeding  the  relief,  as  that  multitudes  had  been 
deprived  of  the  use  of  articles  of  comfort  and  luxury  who  had 
formerly  enjoyed  them.  Thus,  though  the  yield  of  the  duties  on 
comforts  and  luxuries  had  so  increased  as  to  occasion  the  reduc- 
tion of  some  of  them,  the  enjoyment  of  these  comforts  by  indi- 
viduals bad  considerably  lessened ;  and  the  country  was  there- 
fore, if  judged  of  by  its  consumption,  in  a  declining  state.  The 
object  of  this  opposition  was  to  obtain  a  revision  of  government 
expenditure,  and  a  reduction  in  many  national  establishments. 
The  object  was  not  obtained :  the  House  of  Commons  throw  ing 
out  by  a  large  majority  the  forty-seven  resolutions  offered  by  Mr. 
Hume,  and  the  motion  founded  upon  them.  The  sum  of  the 
resolutions  was  : 8  "  That  the  continued  pressure  of  taxation  has 
greatly  increased  the  privations  and  distress  of  the  productive, 
industrious,  and  laboring  classes  of  the  community  ;  "  and  the 
resulting  motion  was  for  an  address  to  the  crown,  pray-  Motion  on 
ing  that  His  Majesty  "would  be  graciously  pleased  to  thestnteof 
take  into  his  consideration  the  present  alarming  state  * 
of  the  country,  and  to  direct  an  immediate  inquiry  to  be  made 
into  the  causes  of  the  existing  distress,  and  the  adoption  of 
measures  calculated  to  bring  it  to  as  speedy  a  termination  as  pos- 
sible, and  to  prevent  its  further  spreading."  The  nmtion  was 
lost  by  a  majority  of  152  to  51,  on  the  4th  of  May,4  within  a 
month  of  the  dissolution  of  parliament.  A  more  curious  in- 
stance can  scarcely  be  found  than  in  the  addresses  of  Prosperity 
Robinson  and  Adversity  Hume,  of  the  opposite  conclusions 
which  may  be  drawn  from  a  view  of  a  statistical  subject,  where 
the  figures  were  indisputable  on  both  sides  —  as  far  as  they  went. 
The  discrepancy  lay  in  the  want  of  a  common  ground  on  which 
to  base  their  calculations.  The  existing  parliament,  it  is  clear, 

1  Hansard,  xiii.  p.  771.  a  Ibid.  xiv.  p.  1305. 

8  Ibid.  xv.  p.  875.  4  Ibid.  p.  8U7. 


472  HISTORY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [BOOK  II. 

thought  the  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer  altogether  in  the  right. 
In  the  poor-law  inquiry  of  subsequent  years,  it  came  out  that  all 
who  had  congratulated  the  nation  on  a  pervading  spread  and 
increase  of  material  prosperity  had  been  widely  mistaken. 

On  the  31st  of  May,  the  session  was  closed  by  commission,  the 
Close  of          speech  declaring 1  "  that,  the  state  of  the  public  busi- 
session.          ness  enabling  His  Majesty  to  close  the  session  at  a  pe- 
riod of  the  year  the  most  convenient  for  a  general  election,  it  is 
His  Majesty's  intention  to  dissolve,  without  delay,  the 

Dissolution.  •        r.  ,.  .       .  i,         .       /i 

present  parliament,  and  to  direct  the  issue  or  writs  for 
the  calling  of  a  new  one."  The  speech  announced  peace  with 
the  Burmese ;  declared  that  every  endeavor  had  been  used  to 
preserve  peace  among  the  nations  in  both  hemispheres  ;  and  ex- 
pressed deep  concern  at  the  distresses  of  the  manufacturing  classes 
at  home,  admiration  at  the  patience  with  which  those  distresses 
had  been  generally  borne,  and  a  hope  that  the  pressure  was  grad- 
ually giving  way. 

Thus  was  dismissed  the  seventh  parliament  of  the  United 
The  late  par-  Kingdom,  after  a  duration  of  six  sessions.  It  had 
liament.  done  some  great  things.  The  Commons  had  not  had 
the  opportunity  of  protecting  the  Queen,  further  than  by  an- 
nouncing that  they  were  ready  to  protect  her,  for  her  case  had 
never  reached  them ;  but  such  indications  as  they  had  been  able 
to  give  were  on  the  right  side.  The  great  work  of  parliamen- 
tary reform  had  begun  with  the  enlargement  of  the  representa- 
tion of  Yorkshire  ;  and  that  of  the  abolition  of  slavery  with  the 
issue  of  the  celebrated  circular  to  the  West  India  colonies.  Our 
country  had  been  ennobled  in  the  eyes  of  the  world  by  the  for- 
eign policy  of  Mr.  Canning,  enthusiastically  sanctioned  by  par- 
liament ;  and  broad  foundations  had  been  laid  for  friendship  with 
mankind  at  large,  and  prosperity  at  home,  by  a  practical  admis- 
sion of  the  principles  of  free-trade.  There  had  been  a  reduction 
of  taxation,  considerable,  though  less  than  men  of  a  later  time 
would  have  achieved  during  ten  years  of  peace.  These  were 
things  actually  done.  A  considerable,  but  indefinite  progress  had 
been  made  towards  other  great  achievements,  which  were  sure 
to  be  effected  in  time.  Nothing  was  done  for  national  education, 
for  Catholic  emancipation,  for  emigration,  for  Chancery  reform, 
for  the  repeal  of  the  corn-laws,  or  for  general  parliamentary  re- 
form ;  but  these  great  topics  had  been  discussed,  and  some  of 
them  diligently  studied;  and  all  clear-sighted  men  knew  that 
they  were  ripening  for  fruition,  through  all  the  gales  of  passion 
and  frosts  of  indifference  which  retarded  their  growth.  There 
could  be  no  doubt  that  the  country  was  in  an  advancing  srate, 
however  severe  the  visitations  of  distress  under  which  it  was 
i  Hansard,  xv.  p.  1444. 


CHAP.  XL]     ELECTIONS.— DROUGHT  AND   HARVEST.     473 

laboring  at  the  end  of  the  six  years'  term  ;  and  however  fearful 
the  turbulence  of  some  districts  and  classes  from  the  withholding 
of  po  itical  rights  on  the  ground  of  religion.  Much  as  there  was 
yet  to  be  done  and  undone,  the  improvement  in  our  political  state 
since  1820  was  very  striking.  The  cabinet  was  liberalized  and 
still  liberalizing;  and,  in  the  train  of  the  cabinet,  the  King.  The 
House  of  Commons  had  grown  wiser  by  its  six  years'  experi- 
ence, and  under  the  influence  of  the  genius  of  Mr.  Canning  — 
imperfect  as  was  that  statesman's-  fidelity  to  his  own  genius  in 
some  points  of  high  importance.  And  now,  there  was  every  rea- 
son to  hope  that  the  new  parliament  would  be  an  improvement 
upon  its  predecessor ;  and  that  the  light  which  had  been  shed 
abroad  in  the  diffusion  of  improved  principles  of  policy  would 
appear  with  some  effectual  concentration  in  the  people's  House, 
arranging  their  present  affairs,  and  decreeing  their  future  des- 
tiny, with  a  clearer  and  more  comprehensive  knowledge  than 
hitherto. 

The  principal  topics  set  up  for  tests  at  the  elections  were  the 
corn-laws  and  Catholic  emancipation ;  and,  more  par-  The  eiec- 
tially,  the  abolition  of  slavery.  The  anti  -  Catholic  tions- 
strength  rather  gained  than  lost  by  the  perturbation  of  the  time. 
The  uncompromised  candidates  said,  with  regard  to  the  corn-laws, 
what  was  usually  said  in  those  days  —  that  they  would  agree  to 
whnt  should  be  best  for  both  grower  and  consumer ;  and  the 
anti-slavery  test  did  not  obtain  much  support.  There  was  an 
opposition  t;ilked  of  to  Mr.  Huskisson  at  Liverpool ;  but  the  ene- 
mies of  free-trade  could  not  find  a  candidate.  Lord  Howiek  and 
Mr.  Beaumont  failed  in  Northumberland ;  and  Mr.  Brougham 
in  Westmoreland,  where  the  Lowtlier  interest  put  forth  its 
strength.  Some  of  the  Radical  demagogues  tried  their  chance ; 
or  rather,  as  Cobbett  avowed,  did  their  best  to  empty  the  purses 
of  certain  of  the  aristocracy.  Cobbett  himself  stood  for  Pres- 
ton, and  polled  nearly  1000  votes;  and  Hunt  opposed  Sir 
Thomas  Lethbridge  in  Somersetshire ;  of  course,  unsuccessfully. 
Lord  John  Russell  failed  in  Huntingdonshire ;  and  the  Bedford 
interest  altogether  succumbed  for  the  time  to  the  anti-Catholic 
spirit.  As  has  been  mentioned,  the  priests  were  active  in  Ire- 
land, and  wrought  wonders — overpowering  the  Beresford  inter- 
est in  Waterford. 

One  circumstance  which  makes  the  elections  of  1826  memora- 
ble to  those  engaged  in  them  was  the  excessive  heat  of  the  sea- 
son. Deaths  from  sunstroke  were  not  confined  to  la  bo  re  re  in 
the  field  and  on  the  road,  but  extended  to  persons  engaged  in  the 
elections.  Tliere  was  difficulty  in  obtaining  grass  for  Drought 
horses,  and  even  water  for  thirsty  agents  and  electors,  anauarvwt. 
The  effect  of  the  drought  upon  the  crops  and  the  markets  has 


474  HISTORY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [BOOK  H. 

been  mentioned ;  and  the  consequent  early  summoning  of  the 
new  parliament,  in  order  to  confirm  the  necessary  alteration  in 
the  duties,  and  to  grant  an  indemnity  to  ministers  for  that  altera- 
tion. As  there  was  an  average  crop  of  wheat,  and  a  very  abun- 
dant one  of  potatoes,  the  alarm  and  inconvenience  caused  by  the 
drought  of  the  summer  were  not  of  long  duration. 


CHAP.  XII.]     CAPITAL  PUNISHMENT.  — BANDITTI.  475 


CHAPTER  XII. 

IN  casting  the  eye  over  the  chronicles  of  these  years,  nothing 
is  so  painfully  impressive  as  the  frequent  records  of  capital  pun- 
capital  punishments.  Even  in  these  recent  days,  men  whments. 
were  brought  out  upon  the  scaffold  in  batches,  and  hanged  in 
rows.  Boys  of  seventeen,  hired  for  the  adventure  of  stealing 
sheep,  or  to  pass  forged  notes,  were  hanged  with  the  strong- 
bodied  burglar,  and  the  hoary  old  coiner.  The  day  before  an 
execution,  the  jail  was  crowded  with  the  families  of  the  doomed 
men,  come  to  bid  them  farewell.  Six  or  eight  wives  together, 
who  are  to  be  widows  to-morrow ;  fifteen  or  twenty  children, 
who  are  to  be  orphans  to-morrow ;  these  were  the  meaning  and 
weeping  reprovers  of  our  law,  so  barbarous  at  so  late  a  day ! 
Some  ameliorations  in  the  law  had,  as  we  know,  taken  place  ;  but 
still,  men  were  brought  out  in  batches,  and  hanged  in  rows. 
The  number  of  executions  was  fearfully  on  the  increase;  and  yet 
it  was  universally  known  that  so  much  impunity  was  allowed,  on 
account  of  the  severity  of  the  law,  as  materially  to  weaken  the 
authority  of  law,  and  encourage  crime. 

In  1826,  a  discovery  was  made  of  a  gang  of  banditti  who  led 
a  romantic  life  in  Gloucestershire.  In  the  neighbor-  Gloucester- 
hood  of  Wickwar,  the  inhabitants  had  suffered  cruelly  8hire  £*a%- 
for  seven  years  under  incessant  depredations,  and  the  consequent 
pains  of  insecurity.  The  thefts  were  so  various  and  vast  as  to 
imli  -ate  the  cooperation  of  a  large  number  of  persons;  but 
none  of  the  stolen  property  was  ever  traced,  nor  any  thief  ever 
recognized.  The  police  at  last  were  set  to  arrest,  almost  at  a 
venture,  a  family  of  the  name  of  Mills  —  an  old  man  and  his 
wife,  and  their  four  sons  ;  and  the  confession  of  these  people  re- 
vealed the  whole.  The  gang  consisted  of  forty  or  fifty  thieves, 
of  whom  thirty-one  were  immediately  arrested.  They  had  found 
or  made  a  subterranean  cavern  of  some  extent,  which  was  en- 
tered by  a  hole  behind  the  fireplace  in  Mills  s  cottage  —  the  large 
pot  concealing  the  aperture.  Nearly  fifty  pounds'  worth  of  half- 
crowns  was  found  there ;  no  less  than  twenty  flitches  of  bacon, 
and  furniture,  cloth,  and  farm  produce  in  plenty. 


476  HISTORY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [BOOK  H. 

The  romance  of  smugg'ing  was  expiring  at  the  close  of  the 
0        ,.         period  we    have    traversed.      From  the    date  of   Mr. 

Smuggling.       '  .  . 

Huskissons  measures  coming  into  operation,  such  tales 
of  adventure  began  to  decline.  The  plain  prose  of  the  matter 
is  that  smuggling  does  not  answer  when  duties  are  reduced  to 
SO  per  cent,  ad  valorem  ;  and  the  poetiy  of  the  case  was  hence- 
forth to  be  found  in  fictions  of  a  preceding  time,  and  in  the  tra- 
ditionary tales  which  haunt  the  Christmas  hearth.  The  mourn- 
(  ful  romance  of  the  game-laws  remained,  however.  In 

that  direction,  men  might  still  look  for  midnight  mur- 
der, the  raging  of  base  passions,  the  tilling  of  the  jails,  and  the 
corruption  of  the  peasant's  home. 

Within   this  period,  the  last  remaining  stocks  in  London  — • 

those  belonging   to  St.  Clement    Danes   in    Portugal 

Stocks 

Street  —  were  removed.  This  ancient  instrument  of 
punishment  was  henceforth  to  be  looked  for  only  in  the  by-pi  ices 
of  England  —  in  some  nook  of  a  village,  or  under  some  old 
park-palin;* — green  with  li -hens,  and  splintering  away  under 
rain  and  wind,  or  the  pranks  of  children,  playing  with  the  boards 
and  the  holes  which  were  once  so  awful.  A  new  instrument  of 
punishment  had  been  previously  introduced  in  jails  —  the  tread- 
wheel,  the  very  name  of  which  was  presently  rendered 
detestable  by  the  abuse  of  the  invention.  New  inven- 
tions are  usually  stretched  beyond  due  bounds ;  and  this  was  the 
case  with  the  tread-wheel.  Not  only  men  who  had  been  unac- 
customed to  such  muscular  exertion  as  is  necessary  for  ascending 
an  interminable  flight  of  stairs  —  which  the  work  of  the  tread- 
wheel  in  fact  is  —  were  condemned  to  the  same  amount  of  tread- 
ing as  the  most  hardy,  but  women  were  put  upon  the  wheel, 
long  after  the  time  which  afforded  ample  proof  that  this  wa>  work 
totally  unfit  for  women.  It  m'ght  appear  to  a  stranger  from 
another  hemisphere  a  strange  thing  that  we  should  boast  of  our 
Christian  civilization,  while  we  had  such  a  spectacle  to  show  as 
was  seen  even  at  a  later  time  than  this.  An  elderly  lady,  of 
good  station  and  fortune,  might  be  seen  on  the  tread-wheel  in 
Coldbath  Fields  prison,  in  the  jail-dress,  and  with  her  hair  cut 
close — for  the  offence  of  shoplifting.  It  is  difficult  to  write 
this  fact ;  and  it  must  be  painful  to  read  it ;  but  the  truths  of  the 
time  must  be  told.  During  this  period,  the  tread-wheel  was  in 
high  re;>u:e  ;  and  the  punishment  might  be  applied  at  the  discre- 
tion of  the  justices  of  the  peace  connected  with  eacli  prison  :  an  1 
it  was  some  lime  before  many  of  them  had  the  discretion  to  see 
and  admit  the  gross  inequality  of  the  punishment,  and  therefore 
its  essential  !>;id  less  when  applied  indiscriminately.  It  was  em- 
ployed chiefly  for  raising  water  and  grinding  corn ;  an  1  some- 
times the  convicts  were  punished  over  and  above  their  sentence, 


CHAP.  XII.]  POPULAR  IGNORANCE.  477 

by  the  mockery  of  being  compelled  to  turn  the  wheel,  to  no  pur- 
pose whatever. 

In  Irela  id.  the  crimes  of  the  early  part  of  this  period  were  as 
savaire  ;md  atrocious  as  in  any  portion  of  the  history 
of  that  unhappy  country.  It  was  in  1S21  that  the 
murder  of  the  Shea  family  took  place,  on  the  borders  of  Tippe- 
rary,  when  the  whole  farm-house  and  offices  were  burned,  and 
seventeen  persons  thrust  back  into  the  flames,  as  often  as  they 
attempted  to  escape.  The  seventeen  were  the  farmer  himself 
and  his  wife,  seven  children,  three  female  servants,  and  five 
laborers.  The  only  other  offence  alleged  was,  that  Shea  had 
brought  laborers  from  a  neighboring  village  to  dig  his  potatoes, 
when  his  own  tenants  would  neither  pay  their  rent  nor  work  it 
out.  After  the  form  ition  of  the  Catholic  Association,  there  was 
a  rapid  diminution  of  crimes  of  outrage  ;  and  the  leaders  of  the 
association  were  no  doubt  justified  in  claiming  the  credit  of  the 
improvement.  There  is  no  ground  for  disputing  their  claim  to 
have  pacified  the  Catholic  peasant  population  of  Ireland  for  the 
time. 

In  England,  evidences  of  popular  ignorance  abound  during 
this  period.  In  one  place  or  another,  from  time  to  popular  ig- 
time,  there  was  a  demolition  of  machinery  ;  sometimes  noranc«- 
power-looms,  and  sometimes  thrashing  machines ;  and  we  meet 
with  one  or  two  instances  of  the  stack  burning  which  became  a 
rase  some  years  afierwards.  Instances  of  fanaticism  abound  :  the 
Holy-Land  Pilgrims  —  a  sect  of  men  who  gave  up  their  industry, 
and  sold  their  property,  to  go  to  Jerusalem  to  meet  the  Lord  ; 
the  followers  of  Joanna  Southcote  ;  the  flying  serpent  of  Dorset- 
shire and  Devonshire,  which,  in  the  shape  of  a  black  blight,  poi- 
soned the  air  ;  the  sorcerer,  Isaac  Stebbings,  wlio  was  ducked  in  a 
Suffolk  village,  in  the  presence  of  thousands  ;  the  drowning  of 
children,  "to  put  the  fairy  out  of  them;"  and  the  desertion  of 
Carmarthen  fair,  on  the  ground  of  the  ancient  prophecy  of  Merlin, 
that  the  town  should  be  destroyed  on  the  12th  of  August,  1824  ; 
tin-  cutting  and  carving  of  a  witch  at  Taunton  ;  and,  above  all,  the 
sensation  about  the  miracles  of  I'rince  Hobenlohe.  It  is  observ- 
able, however,  that  a  large  proportion  of  such  popular  delusion 
lies  at  the  door  of  scieniih'c  and  professional  men,  who  ignore  a 
clas-i  of  facts  which  demand  their  serious  attention  ;  which  stand 
out  clearly  as  facts  under  the  cognizance  of  society  ;  and  winch, 
till  scientifically  investigated,  will  continue  to  afford  material  for 
popular  fanaticism.  The  sympathies  and  operations  of  Prince 
Hohenlohe  have  never  been  explained  away,  to  the  satisfaction 
of  philosophical  minds,  by  the  common  talk  of  imposture  and  the 
influence  of  imagination  ;  and  they  never  can  be,  any  more  than 
the  phenomena  of  somnambulism,  second-sight,  prevision,  and 


478  HISTORY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [BOOK  H. 

presentiments,  which  are  found  in  all  ages  of  the  world,  and  all 
states  of  society.  One  of  the  greatest  of  physical  inquirers,  who 
died  soon  after  this  period,  has  left  behind  him  a  testimony  which 
should  be  taken  home  as  a  lesson  by  those  whose  bu-iness  it  is 
to  explore  the  mysteries  of  the  human  frame.  Sir  Humphry 
Davy  says,  in  his  "  Dialogue  on  Omens,"  "  In  my  opinion,  pro- 
found minds  are  the  most  likely  to  think  lightly  of  the  resources 
of  human  reason ;  and  it  is  the  .pert  superficial  thinker  who  is 
generally  strongest  in  every  kind  of  unbelief.  The  deep  philos- 
opher sees  chains  of  causes  and  effects  so  wonderfully  and 
strangely  linked  together,  that  he  is  usually  the  last  person  to 
decide  upon  the  impossibility  of  any  two  series  of  event-  being 
independent  of  each  other ;  and  in  science,  so  many  natural 
miracles,  as  it  were,  have  been  brought  to  light  ....  that  the 
physical  inquirer  is  seldom  disposed  to  assert  confidently  on  any 
abstruse  subjects  belonging  to  the  order  of  natural  things,  and 
still  less  so  on  those  relat  ng  to  the  more  mysterious  relations  of 
moral  events  and  intellectual  natures."  When  scientific  men, 
and  those  whose  prof.-ssion  pledges  them  to  the  pursuit  of  physi- 
ological science,  are  open-minded  and  earnest  enough  to  admit 
and  study  mysterious  tacts  which  occur  before  their  eyes,  popu- 
lar fanaticism  about  sorcery  and  inspiration  may  give  way ;  but, 
till  this  happens,  not  even  the  widest  spread  of  popular  educa- 
tion will  give  more  than  a  check  to  the  cruel  follies  of  supersti- 
tion. 

One  class  of  the  violences  of  this  period  arose  from  the  prac- 
Body-snatch-  tice  of  body-snatching.  No  sufficient  provision  was  as 
*"«•  yet  made  by  law  for  the  practice  of  dissection  ;  a  prac- 

tice necessitated  by  the  demands  of  science.  Before  it  could  be 
foreseen  what  this  necessity  must  become,"  an  unfortunate  arrange- 
ment had  been  made,  by  which  disgrace  and  horror  were  associ- 
ated with  the  process  of  examining  the  human  body  after  death. 
The  bodies  of  criminals  were  devoted  for  this  purpose ;  and 
much  time,  ami  vigorous  effort  on  the  part  of  individuals,  were 
required  to  overcome  the  prejudice  thus  originated.  Meantime, 
as  bodies  must  be  had,  there  was  nothing  for  it  but  taking  them 
from  the  churchyards  by  night ;  a  painful  fear  was  spread  over 
the  whole  class  of  survivors  of  those  who  were  buried  in  the  or- 
dinary way  ;  and  affrays  and  police-cases  in  consequence,  appear 
frequently  in  the  records  of  the  time. 

The  period  under  review  was  far  behind  our  own  in  regard  to 
Prosecutions  liberty  of  thought,  speech,  and  the  press.  The  influ- 
lorbias-  ence  which  had  deprived  the  poet  Shelley  of  the  guar- 
dianship of  his  own  children,  and  the  state  of  public 
opinion  which  had  countenanced  that  outrage  upon  nature,  were 
Btill  paramount;  and  we  find  a  multitude  of  prosecutions  for 


CHAP.  XII.]    PROSECUTIONS  FOR  BLASPHEMY.  479 

blasphemy,  as  well  as  for  sedition,  taking  place  ;  and  the  law  re- 
fusing its  protection  to  literary  property,  on  account  of  opinions, 
statements,  or  merely  representations  therein  contained.  In 
1«22,  Lord  Byron's  publisher  was  refused  an  injunction  in  Chan- 
cery to  protect  a  poem  of  Lord  Byron's  from  being  pirated,  on 
the  ground  of  its  appearing  to  contain  blasphemous  matter.  Tins 
was  not  precisely  the  way  to  restrict  the  circulation  of  the  poem  ; 
and  thus  it  was  bad  as  a  matter  of  policy.  Moreover,  as  the 
author  wrote  to  the  publisher  :  '* '  Cain  '  is  nothing  more  than  a 
drama,  not  a  piece  of  argument."  We  of  the  present  day  should 
add,  that  the  law  acts  with  tyranny  and  impolicy  when  it  sup- 
presses "  argument "  on  any  subject  whatever.  In  the  same 
year,  protection  against  piracy  was  refused  by  the  Lord  Chan- 
cellor to  the  "  Lectures"  of  Mr.  Lawrence,  the  eminent  surgeon, 
a  work  of  600  pages  on  physiological  subjects.  The  author 
was  debarred  from  the  fruits  of  his  labor  on  the  ground  1  that 
some  passages  of  the  book  discountenanced  the  doctrine  of  the 
immortality  of  the  soul.  The  Lord  Chancellor  thus  did  what  he 
could  to  promote  the  circulation  of  cheap  copies  of  a  book  which 
he  considered  dangerous.  In  the  opinion  of  a  subsequent  time, 
he  did  a  more  dangerous  thing,  in  discouraging  freedom  of  re- 
search and  of  speech  among  men  of  science,  who  cannot  work 
well  in  their  function  under  the  pressure  of  foregone  conclusions 
and  the  tiireat  of  outlawry.  As  Messrs.  Shad  well  and  Wilbra- 
hatn  observed  in  their  pleading  on  the  case,  the  liberty  of  the 
press  was  materially  involved  in  the  question ;  but  as  the  event 
proved,  the  liberty  of  the  press  must  give  way  before  the  force  of 
the  Chancellor's  "conscience"  on  matters  of  opinion. 

In  the  next  year,8  Susanna  Wright  was  brought  up  for  judg- 
ment, for  having  been  instrumental  in  publishing  a  libel  on  the 
Christian  religion.1  "  She  was  neatly  dressed,  but  appeared  to 
have  suffered  in  health  from  the  imprisonment  she  had  under- 
gone." She  was  sentenced  to  eighteen  months'  imprisonment  in 
Coldbath  Fields  prison,  to  pay  a  fine  of  £100,  and  find  sureties 
at  the  end  of  the  term,  under  pain  of  a  longer  imprisonment. 

In  the  next  year,3  eight  shopmen  of  Richard  Carlile  were 
sentenced  to  various  terms  of  imprisonment,  and  to  fines,  for  sell- 
ing, in  their  employer's  shop,  Paine's  "  Age  of  Reason,"  and 
three  other  works  termed  •'  irreligious."  The  results  of  this 
course  of  action  soon  proved  to  reasonable  people  that  prosecu- 
tions like  these  did  not  tend  to  ennoble  and  endear  Christianity 
to  the  very  classes  which  were  likely  to  be  reached  by  these 
proscribed  books.  The  Christianity  of  the  state  appeared  in  a 
tyrannical  and  most  unlovable  aspect,  when  it  impoverished  and 

»  Annual  Register,  1822.     Chron.  p.  62.  2  ibid.  1823.     Chron.  p.  18. 

»  Ibid.  1824.     Chron.  p.  64. 


480  HISTORY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [BOOK  II. 

imprisoned  the  needy  and  hard-working  for  offences  against  it- 
self; and  thus  a  new  stimulus  was  given  to  the  appetite  for  libel 
aga'nst  Christianity.  The  courts  of  law,  thus  employed,  were 
doing  more  for  the  dishonor  of  religion  than  was  ever  done  by 
the  contempt  of  the  ignorant,  and  the  invectives  of  the  discon- 
tented, who  had  no  knowledge  of  Christianity  but  in  its  abuses, 
and  could  not,  therefore,  influence  any  who  had.  Mr.  Cobbett 
had  reckoned  on  a  greater  prevalence  of  admiration  for  Thomas 
Paine  that  he  found  in  England.  He  imported  the  bones  of  his 
favorite  writer,  in  the  expectation  that  they  would  be  run  after 
by  sight-seers  an<l  purchasers  who  regarded  Christianity  as  Paine 
did,  and  would  receive  his  bones  as  saintly  relics.  Hut  nothing 
came  of  it.  The  public  laughed,  and  a  niece  of  Paine's  was  nat- 
urally very  angry ;  but  Cobbett  was  made  a  bankrupt  about  that 
time  ;  the  bones  were  not  exhibited,  nor  heard  of  again. 

The  London  Mechanics'  Institute  was  founded  in  1823  ;  and 
Mechanics'  in  the  next  year  was  laid  the  first  stone  of  the  lecture- 
institute,  theatre.  In  1825,  the  number  of  regular  subscribers 
was  1185.  In  this  year  there  was  a  meeting  of  120  gentlemen, 
London  Uni-  who  desired  the  formation  of  a  university  in  London, 
versity.  ^o  meet  the  wants  of  students  who  were  precluded, 
either  by  religious  opinion  or  mediocrity  of  fortune,  from  attend- 
ing the  existing  universities.  "  The  object  of  the  institution  is," 
said  the  prospectus,  "to  bring  the  means  of  a  complete  scientific 
and  literary  education  home  to  the  doors  of  the  inhabitants  of  the 
metropolis,  so  that  they  may  be  enabled  to  educate  their  sons  at 
a  very  moderate  expense,  and  under  their  own  immediate  and 
constant  superintendence."  There  are  no  incidents  of  the  period 
under  notice  more  cheering  than  these.  It  is  true,  neither  of 
these  institutions  meets  the  great  want  of  all,  — the  education  of 
the  absolutely  ignorant,  who  form  the  largest  proportion  of  society 
in  England ;  but  both  aid  in  preparing  the  way  to  this  all-impor- 
tant object.  The  London  University  educates  a  host  of  young 
men  of  the  middle  class,  who,  from  generation  to  generation,  must 
exalt  the  standard  of  education  among  the  great  body  of  Dissent- 
ers, hitherto  but  half  educated  at  the  best ;  and  who  become  the 
moving  spirits  of  large  classes  which  had  hitherto  lain  below  the 
surface  of  the  prevalent  learning  of  the  time.  And  the  value  of 
mechanics'  institutes  in  exciting  and  training  the  intellects  of  the 
fathers  of  the  next  generation  of  artisans  and  operatives  can 
hardly  be  over-estimated.  It  is  impossible  but  that  the  members 
of  these  institutes  must  be  more  anxious  to  procure  education  for 
their  children,  than  if  the  advantages  and  charms  of  museums, 
libraries,  lectures,  and  reading-rooms  had  not  been  opened  to 
themselves.  At  the  time  of  the  establishment  of  these  institutes 
the  chief  advantage  contemplated  was  the  most  obvious  one,  — 


CHAP.  XII.]     ENCOURAGEMENT  OF  EMIGRATION.  4gl 

of  opening  means  of  knowledge  to  working  men  who  desired  it ; 
but  we,  of  a  somewhat  later  time,  see  a  yet  more  important  re- 
sult accruing,  in  the  exaltation  of  the  idea  of  education  in  the 
popular  mind,  and  the  quickening  of  parental  as  well  as  personal 
desires  for  knowledge.  The  honor  of  originating  these  institu- 
tions belongs  to  Dr.  Birkbeck  more  than  to  any  other  man  ;  and 
to  Mr.  Brougham  also  great  gratitude  was  throughout  felt  to  be 
due.  Dr.  Birkbeck  had  been  preparing  for  the  great  event  of 
1823  from  the  beginning  of  the  century,  by  bringing  together 
classes  ami  audiences  of  working  men,  for  instruction  by  lectures 
and  muiual  communication.  His  influence,  and  that  of  his  co- 
adjutors, always  went  to  rouse  the  people  to  do  the  work  for 
themselves,  and  not  to  wait  for  patronage  or  aid  from  the  state. 
The  response  he  met  was  hearty.  Men  of  influence  and  high 
character  presented  themselves  as  leaders  ;  and  master  mechan- 
ics and  operatives  flocked  to  the  movement.  Two  thirds  of  the 
committee  of  the  London  Mechanics'  Institute  were  working 
men  ;  and  a  continually  larger  proportion  of  that  class  became 
directors,  till,  in  eleven  years  from  its  formation,1  the  directors 
were  chosen  altogether  by  and  from^the  general  body,  with  no 
other  restriction  than  certain  conditions  of  membership.  In  a 
short  time,  many  large  towns — Manchester,  Liverpool,  Sheffield, 
Coventry,  &c.  —  opened  mechanics'  institutes ;  and  then  they 
spread  into  the  central  settlements  of  rural  districts,  where,  by 
the  establishment  of  branches,  the  circulation  of  books  could  be 
carried  on.  At  Chichester,  an  institute  numbered  400  members 
and  had  two  branches  —  at  Bognor  and  Selsey ;  and  at  Lewes 
there  were  200  subscribers.  The  men  of  the  present  generation 
may  well  distinguish  the  year  1823  with  a  mark  of  honor  in  the 
catalogue  of  their  years. 

Alter  the  close  of  the  war,  and  two  deficient  harvests  in  succes 
sion,  government  had  taken  alarm  at  the  number  of 

Emigration. 

unemployed  laborers  who  burdened  the  country,  and 
made  a  feeble  attempt  to  relieve  society  at  home  by  encouraging 
emigration.  They  conveyed  a  small  number  of  settlers  to  South 
Africa,  and  established  them  there.2  .  By  the  custom-house  returns, 
which  are  not  very  reliable,  but  the  only  data  we  have  relative  to 
that  time,  it  appears  that  the  sufferers  took  the  matter  very  much 
into  their  own  hands  —  the  number  of  emigrants  to  South  Africa 
falling  very  short  of  that  to  our  North  American  colonies,  and 
soon  appearing  far  below  that  to  Australia.  In  1820,  according 
to  thi-se  returns,  nearly  18,000  persons  emigrated  to  our  North 
American  colonies,  while  1063  were  conveyed  to  the  Cape.  As 
for  the  Australian  settlements,  the  number  of  emigrants  to  them 

1  Central  Society  of  Education,  1837,  p.  222. 

2  Progress  of  the  Nation,  sec.  i.  c.  5,  p.  128. 
VOL.  n.  31 


482  HISTORY   OF   THE  PEACE.  [BOOK  II. 

increased  nearly  threefold  between  1821  and  1826.  The  total 
amount  of  emigration  is  seen  to  correspond  with  the  state  of  affaire 
at  home.  In  the  sad  years  of  18:20  and  1821,  it  was — leaving 
out  the  odd  numbers —  19,000  and  13,000;  in  the  prosperous 
years  of  1824  and  1825,  it  sank  to  8000  and  90!)0  ;  and  in  the 
disastrous  year  1826,  it  suddenly  rose  to  nearly  14,0:)0,  of  whom 
nearly  13,000  went  to  our  North  American  settlements.  These 
are  facts  which  clearly  point  out  the  duty  of  the  state.  There  is 
evidently  no  question  about  whether  emigration  shall  proceed ; 
no  use  in  arguing  now  about  whether  it  is  a  good  thing  or  not. 
It  proceeds;  and  its  rate  of  procedure  corresponds  with  the  state 
of  affairs  at  home.  The  question  is,  whether  it  shall  go  on  well 
or  ill ;  under  kindly  or  cruel  circumstances.  In  those  days  it  was 
common,  we  might  say  usual,  in  the  bad  years,  for  the  laborer  to 
land  on  the  distant  shore  with  nothing  but  his  empty  hnuds,  and 
his  tribe  of  hungry  children  at  his  heels.  We  shall  see  hereafter 
what  has  been  done  in  regard  to  the  question  whether  such  shall 
continue  to  be  the  method  of  British  emigration,  or  whether  every 
one  who  goes  out  shall  set  forth  with  an  assurance  of  finding,  at 
the  end  of  his  voyage,  wherewithal  to  make  a  home  —  land  or 
employment,  food,  and  a  place  in  society.  As  wo  have  seen,  a 
committee  of  parliament  was  inquiring  on  this  great  question,  at 
the  expiration  of  the  period  under  review. 

A  foreigner  might  point  to  the  state  of  the  chief  insurance 
Fire  and  life  office  in  England  at  this  time,  as  a  curious  illustra- 
insurance.  fion  of  tne  prudential  character  of  the  English  mind. 
The  Equitable  Insurance  Office,  though  the  chief,  is  only  one 
among  many  in  London  ;  and  the  number  in  the  country  has 
been  perpetually  on  the  increase.  In  1825,1  the  vested  capital 
of  the  Equitable  was  upwards  of  eleven  millions ;  and  of  this 
amount,  nearly  nine  millions  had  accumulated  in  twenty-one 
years.  In  1821,2  the  sums  insured  against  fire,  in  the  United 
Kingdom,  amounted  to  more  than  400,000,000/.  There  are  no 
means  of  knowing  precisely  the  amount  of  money  on  life  insur- 
ance in  the  hands  of  the  offices  of  the  kingdom  ;  but  it  is  believed 
to  amount  to  forty  millions.  In  looking  at  these  facts  as  an  indi- 
cation of  national  character,  we  must  bear  in  mind  that  the 
amount  of  insurance  of  life  and  from  fire  would  undoubtedly  have 
been  much  larger  throughout,  but  for  the  indefensible  tax  which 
has  ever  acted  as  a  discouragement  to  this  wise  method  of  saving. 

The  progress  of  the  arts  of  life  during  this  perioil  was  such  as 
to  answer  to  all  reasonable  expectation.  In  May,  1 820,3  a  young 
lady  under  age  received  by  her  trustees  a  sum  of  between  26,000*, 
and  27,000/.,  as  compensation  for  the  loss  of  custom  at  Bangoi 

1  Annual  Register,  1885.     Chron.  p.  96. 

2  Progress  of  the  Nation,  sec.  vi.  c.  2,  p.  123. 
8  Annual  Register,  1820.     Chron.  p.  131. 


CHAP.  XII.]    BRIDGES.  —  GAS.  —  THAMES  TUNNEL.  483 

Ferry ;  which  ferry  had,  up  to  this  time,  yielded  the  young  lady 
900/.  a  year.  This  was  in  preparation  for  the  erection  Menai 
of  the  Menai  Bridge,  which  was  opened  on  the  30th  of  Bri<ige. 
January,  1826,  at  half-past  one  in  the  morning.  The  resident 
engineer  undertook  to  conduct  the  mail  across  ;  and  he  h;id  for 
his  staff  as  many  persons  as  could  hang  upon  the  coach.  "  Amidst 
the  blaze  of  lamps,1  the  cheers  of  those  assembled,  and  the  roar- 
ing of  a  heavy  gale  of  wind,  the  gates  were  thrown  open,  and  the 
mail  passed  triumphantly  across."  There  was  a  throng  on  the 
bridge  throughout  the  next  day;  and  truly  it  was  a  work  worthy 
ot  admiration.  The  height  from  the  high-water  line  was  100 
feet ;  and  the  length  of  the  chains  was  1 600  feet. 

The  first  chain  bridge  in  Great  Britain,  however,  had  been 
completed  nearly  six  years  before.     It  was  the  work   First  chain 
of  Captain  S.  Brown,  R.  N.,  and  was  thrown  across   bri<Jge- 
the  Tweed  where  the  width  of  the  river  was  437  feet  from  bank 
to  bank.     In  1822,  the  Caledonian  Canal  wasx>pened,   Caledonian 
after   the    labor  of  twenty   years,    and    the   sum  of    Canal- 
900,000/.  had  been  spent  upon  it.     The  canal  might  or  might 
not  turn  out  a  good  speculation  ;  but  there  could  lie  no  doubt  of 
the  character  of  the  population  of  the  wastes  along  its  course  hav- 
ing changed  remarkably  in  the  progress  of  the  work.     Regular 
and  well-paid  employment,  and  iu:ercourse  with  able  workmen 
brought  from  a  distance,  had  roused  them  from  a  state  of  torpor 
and  ignorance,  and  given  them  habits  of  industry  and  pleasures 
of  intelligence  never  dreamed  of  before. 

On  the  12th  of  September,  1823,  the  Bridge-house  committee, 
in  contemplation  of  a  new  London  Bridge,  met  at  f,-ew  London 
Guildhall  to  consult,  and  adjourned  to  the  top  of  Fish-  BridK«- 
mongers'  Hall,  to  look  about  them,  and  determine  where  they 
would  put  their  new  bridge.  It  was  to  be  as  near  to  the  old  one 
as  possible  ;  and  the  old  bridge  was  to  stand  till  the  new  one  was 
completed.  The  first  stone  was  laid  in  June,  1825,  by  the  Lord 
Mayor,  in  the  presence  of  the  Duke  of  York.  Mr.  Rennie,  the  ar- 
chitect, was  the  true  hero  of  the  day.  At  the  close  of  our  period 
the  works  were  in  great  forwardness,  and  the  first  stone  on  the 
South  wark  side  had  been  laid  at  the  beginning  of  January,  1826. 

In  1H2-V  we  find  that  the  length  of  streeis  lighted  witli  gas  in 
the  metropolis  was  215  miles;  and  that  nearly  40,000 
public  gas-lamps  were  lighted  by  the  three  principal 
companies. 

la   1826,  the  Thames  Tunnel  was  fairly  begun8 —  Thames  Tun. 
the  first  shaft  having  b^en  actually  united  with  the  nel- 
sommencement  of  thv  tunnel. 

»  Annual  Register,  1826.     Chron.  p.  14.  2  Ibid.  1823.    Chron.  p.  59. 

«  Ibid.  1826.    Chron.  p.  27. 


484  HISTOKY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [BOOK  II. 

Cambridge  University  was  henceforth  to  have  an  observatory ; 
Cambridge  the  Senate  luiving  decreed,  in  1820,  that  one  should 
Observatory,  ^p  built,  and  furnished  with  instruments  —  voting  on 
the  spot  5000/.  towards  the  cost. 

The  Faculty  of  Advocates  at  Edinburgh  purchased,  in  1825, 
a  fine  Danish  library  from  Copenhagen ;  and  in  the  next  year, 
Astorgaii-  the  Astorga  library,  the  finest  collection  of  Spanish 
brary.  books  of  law,  chronicles,  and  romance,  existing  out  of 

Spain.  This  library,  founded  by  the  Marquis  Astorga,  Viceroy 
of  Portugal  under  the  administration  of  Olivarez,  consisted  of 
8000  volumes,  and  was  purchased  for  3000/.1 

In  1821  arrived  the  first  Egyptian  obelisk  seen  in  this  country. 
First  obelisk  It  was  one  of  the  pair  standing  at  the  entrance  of  the 
from  Egypt,  avenue  to  the  temple  at  Philae,  the  Holy  Island  of  the 
Nile,  on  the  borders  of  Nubia.  It  is  of  great  value,  from  the 
curious  matter  contained  in  its  inscriptions,  which  could  not  be 
read  in  London  at  the  time  it  was  brought  over ;  and  tlie  priv- 
ilege of  possessing  it  seems  to  be  enhanced  by  its  having  been 
very  nearly  lost  in  the  act  of  removal.  A  pier  on  the  river-bank 
gave  way  under  its  weight,  and  it  slipped  into  the  Nile ;  but 
Belzoni,  the  traveller,  recovered  it  very  skilfully  ;  and  we  next 
hear  of  it  lying  at  Deptford,2  surrounded  by  artists  who  were 
eagerly  making  drawings  from  it,  for  engraving  purposes.  The 
old  priests  of  the  Holy  Island,  whose  petition  to  Ptolemy  it  bears 
engraved,  would  have  been  astonished  and  dismayed  if  they  could 
have  foreseen  how  far  it  was  destined  to  travel. 

The  art  of  lithographic  printing  was  beginning  to  spread  at 
Lithographic  this  period  ;  so  that  we  read  of  patents  being  taken  out 
printing.  for  lithographic  presses.  The  importance  of  the  inven- 
tion may  have  been  exaggerated  in  the  enthusiasm  of  its  first 
introduction;  but  there  can  be  no  quest'on  of  its  having  wrought 
well  in  presenting  to  the  popular  eye  works  of  art,  of  a  quality, 
and  in  a  multitude,  which  could  never  have  been  enjoyed  with- 
out the  discovery  of  such  a  method  of  cheap  engraving.  The 
utility  of  the  art  in  other  ways  —  in  multiplying  copies  of  manu- 
script, &c.  —  is  so  great  as  to  entitle  the  first  popular  use  of  the 
art  of  lithography  to  notice  in  a  history  of  the  time. 

In  1H24,  the  most  eminent  men  in  London  and  Edinburgh  — 
Watt's  monu- including  the  members  of  the  government  —  met  to 
meut.  r]o  ilonoi-  to  the  memory  3  of  James  Watt  as  the  ben- 

efactor of  his  country  and  his  kind.  The  Prime  Minister,  who 
opened  the  business  at  the  London  meeting,  declared  himself 
charged  with  a  mes  age  from  the  King,  that  if  it  should  be 
determined  on  to  erect  a  monument  to  James  Watt,  His  Majesty 

1  Annual  Register,  1826.     Chron.  p.  11. 

*  Ibid.  1821.     Chron.  p.  148.  «  Ibid.  1824.    Chron.  pp.  76-84. 


CHAP.  XII.]          NORTH  POLAR  EXPEDITIONS.  485 

would  head  the  list  with  a  subscription  of  500?.  The  Edinburgh 
mee  ing  was  led  by  Sir  Walter  Scott  and  Lord  Jeffrey.  Every- 
where, the  foremost  men  seemed  eager  to  honor  the  great  bene- 
factor who  has  done  so  much  for  the  material  interests  of  society. 
His  statue  now  graces  Westminster  Abbey,  where  he  may,  by 
soiiie.  be  thought  to  hold  a  middle  rank  between  the  Edwards 
and  Henries  who  lie  there  glorious  in  their  regality,  and  the 
higher  sovereigns  —  the  kings  of  mind  whose  memorials  sanctify 
the  Poet's  Corner. 

In  every  period  of  modern  history  there  seems  to  be  something 
to  record  of  our  increased  knowledge  of  the  globe  on  Geographical 
which  we  live.     Now  that  we  were  at  peace,  there  dlscovery- 
was  leisure  and  energy  disposable  for  projects  of  geographical 
discovery. 

In  18'20,  some  naval  officers  on  the  coast  of  South  America 
reported  home  that  an  antarctic  continent,1  or  long  Antarctic 
series  of  islands,  of  whose  existence  an  ancient  rumor  Und- 
is  reported,  had  been  discovered  by  the  master  of  a  Northumber- 
land trading- vessel  —  byname  Smith.  It  had  always  been  the 
custom  for  our  trading-vessels,  and,  as  it  appears,  for  those  of 
other  nations,  to  keep  as  near  as  possible  to  Cape  Horn  in  pass- 
ing into  the  Pacific.  Mr.  Smith,  in  command  of  the  William, 
traversed  a  higher  latitude,  and  fell  in  with  a  line  of  coast,  which 
he  followed  for  two  or  three  hundred  miles,  and  which  he  named 
New  South  Shetland  —  landing  to  take  possession  in  the  name 
of  his  country.  He  found  the  climate  temperate,  the  coast  moun- 
tainous, and  bearing  an  occasional  growth  of  firs  and  pines.  He 
passed  large  bays  which  abounded  with  the  spermaceti  whale  and 
seals.  A  party  of  naval  officers  afterwards  accompanied  him  in 
his  vessel,  to  verify  and  certify  his  discovery  ;  and  New  South 
Shetland  lias  since  appeared  in  the  maps  of  the  world.  This  dis- 
covery was  accidental  ai  first,  however  well  followed  up ;  but 
our  North  Polar  knowledge  was  the  result  of  express  North  Polar 
research.  In  1S20,  Captain  Parry  reported  his  dis-  expeditions, 
covery  that  Baffin's  Bay  was  no  bay  at  all;  he  having  found  in 
its  western  coast  a  passage  into  the  Polar  Sea.  Upon  this,  an 
expedition  was  fitted  out  for  purposes  of  further  exploration  of 
the  Antic  Circle  ;  and  rewards  were  offered  by  government  a  — 
5000/.  to  the  first  ship  which  should  reach  1  'MQ  west  long.  ; 
5000/.  more  to  the  first  ship  which  should  reach  K>0°  west  long. ; 
and  a  further  sum  of  10,000/.  to  the  first  ship  which  should  reach 
the  Pacific  by  the  Northwest  Passage.  Smaller  rewards  were 
offered  for  the  attainment  of  high  decrees  of  latitude.  The  result 
of  this  expedition  was  the  discovery  of  the  Strait  of  the  Fury  and 
Hecla,  and  the  ascertainment  generally  that  the  land  in  those 

l  Annual  Register,  1820,  p.  1366.  «  Ibid.  1821.     Chron.  p.  36. 


486  HISTORY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [BOOK  IL 

regions  consists  of  a  vast  arch;pelago  —  one  of  the  largest  on  the 
globe,  of  which  Greenland  may  be  considered  the  mainland. 
An  overland  expedition  was  sent  at  the  same  time,  under  the 
command  of  Captain  Franklin,  to  explore  the  Coppermine  River, 
and  the  coasts  extending  east  and  west  of  its  mouth.  In  1824, 
Captain  Parry  was  sent  again.  From  these  and  subsequent 
expeditions  the  northern  coast  of  the  American  continent  has 
become  clearly  defined,  and  the  existence  of  a  passage  from  ocean 
to  ocean  satisfactorily  made  out,  though  it  is  not  yet  known  to 
have  been  traversed  by  any  one  person. 

Considerable  additions  were  made,  during  these  years,  to  our 
interior  of  knowledge  of  the  interior  of  Africa.  In  1823,  Lieu- 
Africa,  tenant  Clapperton  was  employed,  with  Major  Denham 
and  Dr.  Oudney,  to  explore  a  part  of  the  African  interior  by 
proceeding  south  from  the  Mediterranean  shore.  Dr.  Oudney 
soon  died  ;  but  his  two  companions  penetrated  more  than  1500 
miles,  in  a  measured  straight  line,  to  Lake  Tchad  and  the  town 
of  Soccatoo.  In  the  great  fresh-water  Lake  Tchad  they  saw 
huge  hippopotami  and  elephants,  and  other  mighty  beasts  on  its 
banks.  At  Soccatoo.  they  found  crockery  and  other  ware  with 
the  names  of  English  makers  upon  them.  They  offer  a  much 
more  favorable  picture  of  African  civilization  in  the  interior  than 
had  been  looked  for.  Besides  this  important  piece  of  knowledge 

—  important  as  affecting  the  destinies  of  the  African  race  all  over 
the  globe  —  these  travellers  have  given  to  the  world  much  infor- 
mation about  the  territory  round  Lake  Tchad,  and  south  and 
west  of  it.     On  this  occasion,  the  results  repaid  their  hardships 

—  which  were  great ;  but  their  attempts  to  discover  the  course 
and  rise  of  the  Niger  were  unsuccessful.     In  1825,  Clapperton, 
being  rai-ed  to  the  rank  of  commander,  set  forth  again  with  sev- 
eral companions  and  servants,  to  explore  the  same  region  from 
the  southern  side ;  but  this  expedition  terminated  disastrously, 
the  whole  party  dying  except  Richard  Lander,  the  faithful  ser- 
vant of  Captain  Clapperton.     The  master  might  have  survived 
with  his  servant,  but  for  his  detention  at  Soccatoo  for  many  months 
by  the  King,  his  old  acquaintance.     He  died  within  four  miles 
of  Soccatoo,  in  April,  1827. 

It  is  impossible  to  read  the  records  of  these  years  without 
Remarkable  being  struck  by  the  number  of  earthquakes,  storms, 
seasons.  eclipses,  and  volcanic  eruptions,  and  the  recurrence  of 
extraordinary  drought.  Some  causes  unknown  to  science  —  un- 
known, that  is,  in  their  mutual  relations  —  appear  to  have  been 
at  work,  to  produce  remarkable  effects  in  earth,  air,  and  sea.  In 
1820,  a  new  crater  opened  on  Mount  Vesuvius  ;  and  there  were 
earthquakes  in  various  parts  of  the  globe  In  England,  and 
throughout  Europe,  the  summer  was  intensely  hot.  On  the  7th 


CHAP.  XII.]  REMARKABLE   SEASONS.  487 

of  September  happened  the  great  eclipse  —  the  greate-t  in  the 
memory  of  the  existing  generation  —  which  drew  away  the  peers 
and  listeners  in  the  House  of  Lords,  while  the  Queen's  trial  was 
proceeding.  In  the  next  year,  there  were  rains  so  heavy  as  to 
cause  floods  in  many  districts  of  the  kingdom.  That  at  West- 
minster rose  four  inches  above  the  great  flood  of  1 774.  On  tlie 
26th  of  April  of  this  year,  the  thermometer  (at  Cambridge),  in 
the  shade,  with  a  northeast  aspect,  stood  at  the  extraordinary 
heiglit  of  73  degrees.  Earthquakes  occurred  in  the  south  of 
England  ;  and  two  in  the  west  of  Ireland  were  followed  by  land- 
slips, very  disastrous  to  the  residents.  In  the  next  year,  there 
was  an  earthquake  in  Yorkshire,  and  also  at  Lisbon  and  Ancona ; 
but  the  distinguishing  calamity  of  the  year  was  the  destruction 
of  Aleppo,  by  successive  shocks  which  lasted  for  three  days. 
Many  other  towns  in  the  neighboring  regions  were  destroyed  also ; 
but  at  Aleppo  the  immediate  destruction  was  reckoned  at  up- 
wards of  25,000  lives.  Two  rocks  rose  up  in  the  Mediterranean, 
making  islets  near  Cyprus.  In  the  autumn,  Naples  was  threat- 
ened liy  an  eruption  of  Vesuvius,  of  extraordinary  violence  — 
four  rivers  of  lava  flowing  out  from  old  and  new  craters.  A 
volcano  in  Iceland  began  to  stir,  twice  in  the  same  year,  coating 
large  districts  with  layers  of  ashes.  It  was  the  turn  of  the 
western  world  the  next  year.  On  the  coast  of  Chili,  the  sea 
suddenly  sank  twelve  feet,  and  by  the  trembling  of  the  earth,  for 
a  succession  of  many  hours,  the  city  of  Valparaiso  was  destroyed. 
In  1824,  Persia  was  the  scene.  Many  towns,  of  which  Shiraz 
wa<  the  chief,  were  swallowed  up  or  overthrown,  with  the  greater 
number  of  their-  inhabiiants.  After  some  extraordinary  storms 
which  seemed  t;>  spring  up  about  the  coasts  of  England  and  Hol- 
land during  the  summer,  the  disasters  of  the  year  were  closed  by 
a  hurricane  which  swept  over  the  North  Sea,  wrecking  all  the 
ships  on  the  coast  of  Jutland,  and  then  traversed  Sweden,  mow- 
ing down  the  forests  which  opposed  its  course.  The  waters  of 
the  Baltic  were  swept  into  the  Gulf  of  Finland ;  and  St.  Peters- 
burg was  almost  drowned  in  the  rise  of  the  Neva,  The  de- 
struction of  life,  lands,  houses,  and  goods,  was  beyond  all  estimate. 
Earthquakes  continued  through  the  two  following  years ;  and 
the  heat  of  the  summer  in  Europe  was  such  as  to  cause  much 
conjecture  as  to  the  reasons  of  the  changes  in  the  temperature  of 
the  seasons.  Horses  dropped  dead  in  the  streets  of  our  towns, 
and  men  in  the  fields.  Upon  the  heat  followed,  as  usual,  storms, 
and  the  fatal  tires  which  it  is  so  difficult  to  check  after  long 
drought.  On  the  side  of  one  of  the  Grampians,  a  spark  caught 
the  dried  moss,  and  the  fire  spread  for  above  a  fortnight.  At 
one  time,  the  mass  of  fire  was  from  five  to  seven  feet  deep  in  the 
moss,  extending  over  an  area  of  seven  miles  by.  five,  On  ac,« 


488  HISTORY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [BOOK  IL 

count  of  the  heat,  no  one  could  approach  to  take  measures  for 
extinguishing  it;  and  :t  burned  itself  out  at  last.  During  these 
years  of  elemental  turmoil,  men  felt  as  singular  a  sense  of  pre- 
cariousness  —  with  the  globe  groaning  and  heaving  under  their 
feet,  and  meteors  flashing  and  storms  rushing  about  their  heads  — 
as  we  may  suppose  a  race  of  ants  to  feel,  when  man  comes  with 
his  candle  :md  his  gunpowder  to  blow  up  their  settlement.  Amidst 
the  conflicting  forces  of  nature,  man  felt  as  powerless  as  they. 

One  incident  of  the  new  reign,  not  quite  unimportant,  was  that 
Windsor  Windsor  Terrace  was  once  more  opened  to  the  public, 
Terrace  as  a  consequence  of  the  death  of  the  old  King.  There, 

reopened.          ^  ^  ^^  Qf  ^Q    jagt    centuly5  Jje  uge(|  to  w,fl\^  wjtn 

his  young  family  around  him,  in  the  presence  of  a  crowd  of  gaz- 
ing subjects.  There,  in  his  latter  days,  he  walked,  blind,  secluded, 
and  with  benighted  mind ;  so  that  for  him  the  sun  seemed  not  to 
shine,  and  the  glorious  landscape  stretching  below  might  as  well 
have  been  blotted  out.  Now,  the  place  was  again  opened  to  the 
public ;  but  not,  as  formerly,  for  loyal  subjects  to  greet  their 
King.  George  IV.  could  not  submit  to  the  observances  of  roy- 
alty which  required  his  meeting  his  people.  He  secluded  him- 
self more  and  more,  from  morbid  feelings  of  indolence  and  self- 
indulgence.  From  a  letter  of  Lord  Eldon's,  we  learn  how  his 
ministers  disliked  and  disapproved  of  this  growing  indolence : 1 
"  There  was  what  is  called  a  grand  review  in  Hyde  Park  yester- 
day (July  10,  1824).  The  Duke  of  York  was,  I  hear,  very  pop- 
ular, and  prodigiously  cheered.  My  royal  master  was  in  Carl- 
ton  House  —  that  is,  within  half  a  mile  of  this  scene  —  but  did 
not  approach  it.  It  is  astonishing  what  is  lost  by  this  sort  of 
dealing,  and  it  is  grievous  that  popularity,  which  might  be  so 
easily  earned,  and  acquired  at  so  small  an  expenditure  of  time 
and  trouble,  should  not  only  not  be  secured,  but  a  feeling  of  dis- 
gust and  reproach  be  engendered  towards  a  person  with  respect 
to  whom  a  very  different  feeling  most  easily  might  and  ought  to 
be  created."  While  the  King  was  thus  negligent  of  his  personal 
popularity,  his  ministers  and  parliament  did  an  act  which  secured, 
among  some  eminent  families,  a  grateful  attachment  towards  the 
Reversal  of  House  of  Brunswick.  By  a  reversal  of  attainders, 
attainders.  five  famiiies  were,  in  1824,  restored  to  their  ancestral 
honors,2  forfeited  by  rebellion  in  the  last  century,  —  the  Jerning- 
hams,  Erskines,  Gordons,  Drummonds,  and  Nairns  ;  and  in  1826, 
acts  were  passed  3  restoring  the  peerages  of  Earl  of  Carnwath, 
Earl  of  Airlie,  Lord  Duff,  Lord  Elcho,  and  the  baronetcy  of 
Threipland  of  Fingask. 

It  was  during  the  period  under  notice  that  musical  festivals 

l  Life  of  Lord  Eldon,  ii.  p.  526.  2  Annua  Register,  1824,  p.  61,. 

«  Ibid.  1826,  p.  107, 


CHAP.  XII.]    ROYAL  SOCIETY  OF  LITERATURE.  489 

expanded  into  their  full  dimensions,  though  Birmingham  hqs 
for  some  lime  exhibited  them  as  an  institution.  This  Musical  res- 
expansion,  and  every  other  signal  advance  in  the  love  tivals- 
and  practice  of  art,  may  be  regarded  as  direct  consequences  of 
the  peace.  The  opening  of  the  continent  gave  a  vast  stimulus 
to  the  artistic  mind  of  England  ;  and  the  choral  music  of  Ger- 
many was  as  striking  a  revelation  of  the  power  of  art  to  quali- 
fied travellers,  as  the  picture-galleries  of  that  country,  France, 
and  Italy.  By  the  festivals  of  York,  Norwich.  Birmingham,  and 
Worcester,  music  of  a  high  order  was  offered  to  multitudes  of 
the  middle  classes,  some  time  before  London  could  yield  music 
which,  iu  i he  mass,  could  be  compared  to  it;  and  subsequent 
times  have  shown  that  thus  \vas  awakened  in  the  English  people 
a  dormant  faculty,  whose  training  is  a  most  important  auxiliary 
to  true  civilization.  If  we  now  observe  anywhere  among  our 
people  a  tendency  to  musical  pursuit,  stimulating  the  intellect, 
and  softening  the  manners,  like  the  musical  faculty  of  the  Ger- 
mans we  must  date  its  rise  from  the  multiplication  of  musical 
festivals  after  ihe  peace,  —  though  these  could  never,  of  them- 
selves, have  effected  what  has  been  done  since  by  efforts  of 
another  kind,  for  the  popular  musical  education  of  England. 
The  funds  raised  by  these  gatherings  for  the  support  of  charities 
are  an  important  benefit ;  but  it  is  perhaps  a  greater  that  music 
of  an  elevating  character  has  been  carried  into  thousands  of 
English  homes. 

The  King,  on  his  accession,  favored  the  institution  of  a  Royal 
Society  of  Literature,  to  serve  "as  a  rallying-point . 1  ROVai  Society 
for  concentrating  and  diffusing  information,  by  a  union  Wwwhn* 
of  persons  of  similar  tastes  and  pursuits  ;  "  and  for  purposes  of 
literary  patronage.  The  King  declared  his  intention  of  devoting 
a  thousand  guineas  a  year  to  pension  ten  associates  of  the  society, 
and  the  society  agreed  to  contribute  a  similar  sum  to  pension  ten 
more.  These  associates  were  to  be  men  of  emim-nt  literary 
ability  and  good  character,  the  poverty  of  whose  circumstanced 
would  make  the  allowance  of  one  hundred  guineas  a  year  accept- 
able to  them.  Tlie  society  was  also  to  promote  the  publication 
of  inedited  remains  of  ancient  literature,  and  of  works  of  a 
valuable  but  not  popular  character ;  to  reward  literary  merit  by 
honorary  tokens ;  to  establish  a  correspondence  with  men  of 
letters  abroad :  and  in  every  way  to  promote  the  character  and 
progress  of  literature.  The  scheme  advanced  slowly  ;  .so  that  it 
was  June,  18'23,  before  the  first  general  meeting  of  the  society  was 
held,  when  its  objects  and  constitution  were  declared  to  the 
world  by  some  of  the  first  men  of  the  day. 

Two  curious  di-coveries  were  made  in  the  Stale-paper  Office 
1  Annual  Register,  1820.     Chron.  p.  530. 


490  HISTORY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [Boon  II. 

in  the  years  1824  and   1826.1      It  appears  th?t  while   Milton 
,  was  secretary  to  Cromwell,  he  must  have  deposited 

or  left  in  thi-  office  the  MS.  of  liis  Latin  treatise  on 
Christian  Doctrine,  wh'ch  had  been  known  to  exist,  but  oou'd 
never  be  ibund.  It  was  now  brought  to  light  by  Mr.  Lemon 
of  that  olfice.  It  was  contained  in  an  envelope,  addresse  I  to 
Cyriac  Skinner,  merchant.  Of  course,  it  immediately  fixed  the 
attention  of  the  learned,  and  it  was  soon  published  ;  but  its  con- 
tents, set  forth  in  the  great  poet's  bold  and  free  style,  were  too 
heterodox  for  the  taste  of  the  learned  of  the  modern  time  ;  and 
on  account  of  the  Arianism  of  the  doctrine,  and  some  startling 
views  on  divorce  and  other  subjects,  it  was  consigned,  as  far  as 
was  possible,  to  neglect.  The  other  discovery  was  of  some 
Queen  Kiiza-  autograph  MSS.  of  Queen  Eliz  ibeth,  ami  of  her 
beta's  MSS.  secretary.  These  consisted  of  an  entire  translation 
of  Boethius.  and  poetical  versions  of  Horace,  by  the  Queen. 
With  these  came  to  light  a  mass  of  documents  relating  to  the 
reign  of  Henry  VIII.;  and  especially  his  proceed, ngs  in  regard 
to  his  divorced  wives. 

While  a  new  work  of  Milton  was  presented  to  his  countrymen, 
his  gseat  poems  were  introduced  to  the  homes  of  a  far-distant 
people  —  the  dwellers  in  a  remote  island,  "far,  far  amid  the 
Milton  in  melancholy  main."  The  lon^  winters  of  Iceland  are 
Icelandic.  cheered  by  literary  enjoyments,  like  the  milder 
seasons  of  southern  lands  ;  and  at  this  time,  while  the  new 
volcano  was  pouring  out  flames,  and  covering  the  reeking  plains 
of  Iceland  with  ashes,  the  harmless  and  genial  Hame  of  Milton's 
genius  WHS  beginn  ng  to  kindle  hearts  within  a  thousand  house- 
holds. This,  indeed,  is  fame  !  The  translator  of  "  Paradise  Lost" 
into  the  Icelandic  tongue  was  Thor.akson,  a  native  poet,  who 
died  at  Copenhagen  in  1820. 

The  losses  of  our  country  by  death  were  very  great  during 
Losses  by  the  seven  years  of  this  period.  Besides  the  statesmen 
death.  whom  we  have  seen  to  disappear  in  the  course  of  our 

history,  there  were  others  who  dropped  quietly  away,  from  being 
at  the  time  not  enu;a^ed  in  the  public  view.  The  old  Lord 
Lord  Malmesbury,  who  has  told  us  so  much  of  the  events 

Mairnesbury.  am|  details  of  British  policy  during  the  last  century, 
and  who  woo^d  the  unfortunate  Caro.ine  of  Brunswick  for  the 
Lord  Prince  of  Wales,  died  towards  the  clo^e  of  1820. 

E^kine.  Lord  Erskine  died  in  1823,  leaving  behind  him  the 
remembrance  and  tradition  of  an  eloquence  which  his  admirers 
believed  to  be  absolutely  singular.  In  the  same  year  departed  an 
Lord  St.  old  admiral,  whose  mere  name  seems  to  cany  us  back 
Vincent.  to  tne  navai  warfare  of  a  preceding  century,  —  Earl 
St.  Vincent,  who  nearly  reached  the  age  of  ninety. 

1  Annual  Register,  1824,  p.  278* ;  1826,  Chron.  p.  75. 


CHAP.  XII.]  LOSSES  BY  DEATH.  491 

Of  philosophers  there  died  the  great  Herschel.  who  in  middle 
life  pas  ed  over  from  his  pas  ionate  love  of  music  to 
attend  to  the  finer  harmonies  of  the  stars  in  their 
courses.  He  learned  many  secreis  of  the  heavens,  and  m;ide 
them  known  to  men ;  and  in  acknowledgment  his  name  is  writ- 
ten in  lig  ,t  in  the  heavens  themselves.  One  of  tlie  remotest 
known  planets  of  our  system  is  symbolized  by  th  •  initial  of  his 
name.  He  left  us  not  only  his  knowledge,  but  the  menus  of 
gaining  more.  His  great  telescope  at  Slough  was  the  wonder 
of  his  time;  and  it  will  continue  to  be  so,  however  science  and 
art  may  enable  men  to  improve  the  powers  of  the  instrument. 
He  d  ed  in  1822,  in  his  eighty-fourth  year.  Sir  Joseph  Banks, 
president  of  the  Royal  Society,  died  in  1820,  after  a  sir  Joseph 
long  and  useful  life  >pent  in  seeking  and  diff,isin.r  the  Banks- 
know. edge  of  nature,  and  in  encouraging  in  others  the  pur- 
suit of  natural  science.  In  the  same  year  died  one  who-e  pur- 
suits class  him  at  once  among  the  philosophers  and  the  trav- 
eller-, —  Arthur  Young,  the  great  master  in  agricul-  Arthur 
ture.  His  researches  in  agriculture  led  him  to  ob-  Youn8- 
serve  much  of  the  political  and  social  condition  of  the  people  of 
every  country  in  which  he  travelled ;  and  it  is  remarkable  that 
he  published,  in  1761),  a  work  on  the  expediency  of  a  free  im- 
po.  tation  of  corn.  Whatever  he  said  was  attended  to  by  some 
of  the  sovereign-;  of  Europe,  as  well  as  peers  and  commoners ; 
and  his  power  was  great,  in  hi>  day,  over  the  practice  of  agricul- 
ture, from  Russia  to  Sp  lin,  and  over  the  imposition  of  taxes  at 
home  which  are  in  any  way  related  to  agriculture.  While  he 
was  burned  in  effigy  in  one  place,  he  was  receiving  honorary 
medals  in  another.  He  might  be  sometime-;  mistaken,  and 
some  what  apt  to  exaggerate  methods  and  advantages  which  pre- 
sented themselves  strongly  to  his  mind  ;  but  no  one  questioned 
his  influence,  or  his  innocent  ardor  in  a  most  important  pursuit. 
He  held,  at  the  time  of  his  death,  the  office  of  Secretary  to  the 
Board  of  Agriculture,  though  he  had  been  blind  for  ten  years. 
He  was  in  his  eightieth  year. 

The  country  had  a  great  lo-s  in  the  death  of  David  Ricardo, 
who  died,  not  in  the  ripe  old  ajje  of  tin;  philosophers  David 
we  have  been  registering,  but  in  his  fifty--ixth  year;  Wc&rto. 
and  just  at  a  time  (1823)  when  his  influence  in  parl  ament  was 
beginning  to  manifest  itself  in  the  changed  spirit  of  legislation 
on  economical  subjects  ;  and  when,  moreover,  the  new  men  who 
had  entered  tlie  cabinet  were  those  who  could  give  wide  practi- 
cal effect  to  his  philosophy.  He  did  all  that  an  independent 
member  could  do,  an.l  more  than  it  could  have  been  anticipated 
that  any  independent  member  could  do,  to  accelerate  the  prog- 
ress of  enlightened  legislation  during  his  short  parliamentary 


492  HISTORY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [BOOK  II. 

career  ;  and  his  writings  effected  even  more  outside  tha  walls  of 
parliament  than  his  influence  within.  He  was  missed  and  la- 
mented tor  many  years,  by  ministers,  parliamentary  comrades, 
and  the  public  ;  and  especially  during  the  bank  tbl  ies  and  crash 
of  the  years  immediately  succeeding  his  death.  If  any  one  could 
have  made  sound  doctrine  heard,  and  have  checked  the  madness 
of  the  time,  by  keeping  the  House  of  Commons  in  its  senses,  it 
was  he  ;  but  he  was  gone,  and  our  world  was  sorely  the  worse. 

The  travels  of  Dr.  Edward  D.  Clarke  were  read  with  avidity 
Dr.  E.  D.  i»  their  day  ;  and  they  answered  some  good  purposes 
Clarke.  jn  arousing  the  curiosity  and  stimulating  the  imagi- 

nation of  the  English  reading  public,  whose  faculties  had  been 
kept  too  much  at  home  by  the  long  protraction  of  the  war. 
These  books  opened  new  regions  to  the  fancy,  and  acted  in  some 
degree  as  works  of  the  imagination  do.  And  so  they  might ; 
for  they  were  truly  works  of  fiction  to  a  considerable  extent. 
Since  those  days,  scientific  travelling  has  become  something 
which  the  world  was  not  then  dreaming  of;  and  certainly  Dr. 
Clarke  never  dreamed  of  painstaking  in  research,  or  care  in  relat- 
ing his  adventures.  He  travelled  because  he  was  too  restless 
to  keep  sliil ;  and  he  had  been  too  indolent  as  a  student  to  be 
qualified  to  use  the  best  privileges  of  foreign  travel.  His  ob- 
servation was  superficial,  and  his  representations  inaccurate. 
Therefore,  his  works  are  now  neglected,  if  other  travellers  have 
been  over  the  same  ground  ;  though  they  were,  in  their  day, 
attractive  and  popular  enough  to  make  for  him  a  considerable 
reputation.  He  died  in  1822,  in  the  fifty-fourth  yenr  of  his  age. 
Another  traveller,  Belzoni,  who  died  in  the  next  year, 

Belzom.  .        '  ,        '.  <          ' 

may  be  considered  luiglisn  enough  to  be  classed 
among  the  national  losses,  though  lie  was  born  at  Padua,  and 
died  in  Africa.  lie  lived  much  in  England,  regarded  our 
country  as  his  home  more  than  any  other,  and  enriched  it  with 
some  precious  fruits  of  his  Egyptian  researches.  To  him  we 
owe  a  great  part  of  the  Egyptian  discoveries  made  in  recent 
years  —  the  opening  of  the  precious  rock-temple  of  Aboo  Simbel, 
and  of  the  tomb  of  Osirei  at  Thebes ;  and  of  many  monuments 
which,  but  for  him,  would  have  been  buried  still  in  the  sands  of 
the  desert.  He  was  a  man  of  mighty  stature  and  great  strength, 
courage,  and  hardihood.  He  was  himself  reliable,  while  he  be- 
lieved few  other  people  to  be  so ;  for  his  temper  was  suspicious 
and  jealous.  He  had  no  scholarship.  His  business  lay  in  an- 
other direction.  It  was  fir  him  to  discover  and  bring  to  hand 
what  scholars  were  to  attest  and  reason  upon  ;  and  his  function 
was  no  mean  one,  as  will  be  agreed  by  all  who  are  aware  what 
it  is  to  have  to  deal  with  wild  Arabs  in  wildernesses  of  rock 
and  sand.  Such  a  man  will  always  be  felt  to  have  departed  too 


CHAP.  XII.]  TRAVELLERS.  — JENNER.  493 

soon,  while  any  part  of  the  ancient  world  remains  to  be  uncovered 
to  modern   eyes.     His  age  is  not  known ;  hut  he  was  about  to 
make  a  youthful  sacrifice  of  himself  to  the  monastic  life  at  Home 
when  the  entrance  of  the   French,  in  1798,  compelled  a  change 
of  purpose.     He  was  thus,  probably,   only  a  little    above    fifty 
when  he  died  in  December,   1823.     Another  Egyptian  traveller, 
Sir  Frederick  Henniker,  died  at  an  early  age  in  182o.   sirF.  iien- 
He    was   only    thirty-one.       Among   his     adventures  niker- 
abroad  was  one  which  befell  him  on  the  road  going  down  from 
Jerusalem  to  Jericho,  when  robbers  stripped  and  wounu'ed  him, 
arid  left  him  for  dead.     He  published  a  volume  of  notes  of  his 
travels,  after  his  return,  settling  down  as  lord  lieutenant  of  the 
County  of  Essex  and  colonel  of  the  local  militia.     His  book  of 
travels  is   accurate   and   interesting.       Sir    Stamford   sirT.  stam- 
RarHes  died  in  1826.     He  was  only  forty-seven  years   for(1  Raffles- 
of  age  ;  but  he  had  done  great  things  during  his  too  short  life. 
He  it  was  who  acquired  Java  for  us,  and  governed  it  during  the 
time  that  it  belonged  to  Great  Britain.     He  abolished  slavery 
there,  advanced  in  every  way  the  welfare  of  the  native  popula- 
tion, and  gave  us  a  great  amount  of  knowledge  of  those  parts  of 
the  world,  though  h  s  collections  and  journals,  and  all  that  he 
had,  was  lost  by  shipwreck  on  his  return  home.     He  did  almost 
as    much   for    Sumatra   as  for   Java,   especially  by    abolishing 
slavery  ;  and  we  owe  to  him  the  establishment  of  one  of  the  most 
important  commercial  settlements  in  the  world, —  that  of  Singa- 
pore, which  may  be  considered  the  key  of  the  great  far-eastern 
world.      His    last   service    to  his    country  was  establishing  the 
British  Zoological  Society.     The  geographer  Arrow-   Arrowsmlth 
smith,  who  visits  all  English  households  in  the  shape 
of  the  best  maps  of  the  time,  died  in   1823,  in  a  good  old  age. 
And  in  the  same  year  we  lost  the  great  Jenner,  who   Jenner 
waged  war  against  disease  with  greater  success,  as  we 
believe,  than  any  other  physician  who  ever  lived.     Lady  Mary 
Wortley  Montagu  supposed  she  was  rendering  a  great  service 
to  humanity,  and  was  long  supposed  by  all  to  have  done  so,  by 
introducing  the  practice  of  inoculation  for  the  small-[x>x ;   and 
this  was  true,  in  as  far  as  she  communicated  the  idea  of  inocula- 
tion in  any  mode.     But  the  ravages  of  small-pox  became  inral- 
cu  ably  greater  in  consequence  of  her  method,  from  the   infec- 
tion being  always  kept    up,  and  spread  abroad,   to  seize    upon 
all  wh  .  were  predisposed  to  thed  sease.     Dr.  Jenner  put  together 
the  facts  of  inoculation  and  of  the  exemption  fran  sraill-pox  of 
the  G  o  ic.es  ershi/e  mi  kers  who  had  taken  the  cow-pox  from 
their  cows,  and  tried  the  experiment  of  inoculation  for  co>v-pox, 
which  has  banished  all  dangerous  degrees  of  snail-pox  whrrever 
it  has  extended.     He  freely  gave  to  the  world  his  discovery  of 


494  HISTORY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [BOOK  IL 

vaccination,  and  thu>  made  himself  one  of  the  greatest  of  human 
benefactors.  He  reached  th^  age  of  seventy-five. 

Of  actors,  we  lost  in  this  period,  John  Kemble,  the*  emperor 
John  Kemble.  of  his  art ;  and  Incledon,  whose  ballad-singing  was 
inciedon.  singularly  suited  to  the  English  taste  of  the  last  cen- 
tury. 

Of  artists,  we  lost  some  whom  it  grieved  the  heart  of  the 
nation  to  part  with.  The  noble-hearted  and  gentle 

Flaxman.  r,,  *  .     ,     .  .. 

r  laxman  died  in  1826,  at  the  age  or  seventy-one. 
Among -his  great  benefits  to  his  kind,  it  was  one  of  the  greatest 
—  though  he  was  wholly  unconscious  of  it  —  that  he  showed  in 
his  whole  life  what  the  happiness  of  genius  is.  when  allowed  its 
full  and  free  action.  Me  had  all  the  genuine  attributes  of 
genius  —  its  purity,  its  generosity,  its  benevolence,  its  candor,  its 
industry,  its  patience  under  God  and  towards  man  ;  and  lie  was 
one  of  the  happiest  of  men  — joyous  in  his  labors,  blessed  in  his 
marriage,  and  serene  in  the  contentment  of  his  mind,  and  the 
simplicity  of  his  life.  His  friends  loved  him  almost  to  a  point 
of  idolatry.  He  brought  to  the  general  Knglish  mind,  through 
the  eye,  the  conceptions  of  Homer.  ^Escliylus,  and  Dante ;  and 
presented  in  fresh  nobleness  and  beauty  many  a  sacred  image 
from  the  Scriptures.  Working  alone  and  in  silence,  in  a  spirit 
of  monastic  holiness,  he  was  the  effectual  preacher  of  a  wider 
church  than  walls  can  contain,  or  than  can  be  reached  hy  any 
other  voice  than  that  which  appeals  to  the  soul.  The  sculptor 
Nollr-kens  died  in  1823.  having  attained  the  objects  of 

Nollekens.  ....  .  ,        rm 

his  life  in  a  greater  degree  than  is  usual.  Ihese1 
objects  were,  first,  money,  and  then  fame ;  and  he  also  desired 
long  life.  He  lived  to  the  age  of  eighty-six,  left  more  than 
200,000/.  behind  him,  and  enjoyed  a  considerable  reputation. 
His  great  natural  powers  had  no  fair  chance  against  the  draw- 
backs of  a  defective  education,  and  an  overwhelming  tendency  to 
acquisitiveness.  He  pursued  a  lower  style  of  art  than  his  pow- 
ers would  have  fitted  him  for,  if  he  had  been  morally  wiser ;  and 
his  latter  days  were  passed  among  the  unsatisfactory  attentions  of 
suspected  legacy-hunters.  He  knew  that  he  was  admired  by 
many  ;  and  for  some  qualities,  truly,  though  partially  esteemed  ; 
but  he  must  have  known  that  he  was  not  loved.  Thus  while  oc- 
cupied through  a  long  course  of  years  with  the  ideas  and  labors, 
he  missed  the  best  privileges,  of  the  artist  life.  Another  eccen- 
tric man  and  artist  who  died  during  this  period,  was 
Fuseli,  the  protege  of  Reynolds,  the  beloved  of  Mary 
Wollstonecraft,  the  friend  of  Lavater  and  Bonnycastle.  It  was 
his  earnestness  which  made  his  power  and  his  fame.  Exhibited 
in  familiar  subjects,  and  those  which  should  be  simply  natural,  it 
was  grotesque  enough ;  and  the  more  so  from  the  imperfection 


CHAP.  XII.]  LOSS  OF  ARTISTS.  495 

of  both  his  drawing  find  his  coloring;  but  when  infused  into  his 
preternatural  subjects  —  his  "  Nightmare,"  and  "  Sin  pursued  by 
'  Death  " —  it  is  very  impressive.     His  great  service   to  society 
was  in  presenting  to  it  his  own  originality,  and  in  rousing  atten- 
tion to  the  arts  of  design  and  invention,  at  a  time  when  our  in- 
sular seclusion  was  unusually  close,  and  the  interior  departments 
of  art  naturally  engrossed  a  disproportionate  attention  over  the 
higher.      He  was  as  eccentric  in  his  mind  generally  as  in  his  art ; 
but  he  had  friends  about  him  all  his  life,  who  thought  it  worth 
while  to  bear  with  his  strange  temper, Tor  the  sake  of  his  goodness 
in  other  respects.      His  domestic  life  was  happy;  and  this  peace 
at  home,  together  with  his  habits   of  industry  and   temperance, 
had,  no  doubt,  great  effect  in  procuring  him  excellent  health  and 
long  life.      He  was  eighty-seven  when  he  died  in  1825.       Ben- 
jamin West  was  an  American  by  birth;  but  he  died 
(1820)  president  of  our  Royal  Academy.     As  an  his- 
torical painter  he  stood  very  high,  if  not  unrivalled  in  this  coun- 
try, from  his  inventive  power;  though  he  was  as  feeble  in  expres- 
sion as  in  coloring.     Like  so  many  of  his  brethren  in  art,  he  was 
simple  and  virtuous  in  his  life,  of  devoted  industry;  and  he  lived 
to   a  great    age — eighty-two  years,      lie  painted  or  sketched 
about  4oO  pictures ;  and  when,  we  consider  how  large   some   of 
these  are,  and  how  thronged  with  figures,  we  shall  see   that    his 
life    must   have  been    spent  chiefly  in  his    painting-room.     His 
greatest  works    are   from  Scriptural   subjects:  "  Christ   Healing 
the  Sick,"  "  Christ  Rejected,"  and  "  Death  on  the  Pale  Horse." 
One   of  the  most  eminent   of  our   portrait  -  painters, 
Sir  Henry  Raeburn,  died  in  1823.     His  portraits  are 
full  of  life,  vigor,  and   prominence  ;  and   they  are  admirable  as 
likenesses.      He  received  his  knighthood  on  the  visit  of  George 
IV.  to  Edinburgh,  and  was  appointed    lu's    portrait-painter   for 
Scotland ;  but  he  died  the  following  year.      William    William 
Sh'irp,  the  eminent  line-engraver,  died  in  1824,  in  a   SharP- 
good  old  age.     He  w.-is  mainly  self-taught,  and  was  wont   to  de- 
clare that  his  first  attempts  at  engraving  were  jnade  on  a  pewter 
pot.     To  him  we    owe  the   practice   of  illustrating,  in  a  worthy 
manner,  the  eminent   authors   of  our   literature.     Sharp  was  a 
great    Radical ;  and,   in    Home    Tooke's   time,  was    repeatedly 
brought    before    the    privy  council.     He  was  a  man  not  easily 
frightened   however  ;  and  he  used  his  opportunity  to  canvass  Mr. 
Pitt  and  others  of  the  council  for  subscriptions  to  his  forthcoming 
engraving  of   Kosciusko's    portrait.     They  could    not  command 
their  countenances  to  deal  severely  with  him  after  this  ;  and  they 
let  him  go.      He  was,  with  all  his  jocularity  of  temper,  ardor  in 
his  profession,  and  good  sense  on  most  subjects,  singularly  super- 
stitious —  believing  that  the  end  of  the  world  was  at  hand,  and 


496  HISTORY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [BOOK  H, 

bringing  up  Joanna  Southcote  to  London,  and  maintaining  her 
there.  In  middle  life,  he  might  have  become  an  associate  of 
the  Royal  Academy ;  but  he  took  up  the  cause  of  some  other 
em  nent  engravers,  less  favored  than  himself,  in  a  manner  which 
offended  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds,  who  dropped  his  claims  and  his 
acquaintance. 

Some  lovers  and  patrons  of  art,  who  were,  on  that   ground. 

benefactors  of  society,  died  during  this  period.     Mr. 

Angerstein  was  Jborn  in  Russia,  but,  from  the  age  of 
fourteen,  spent  his  life  in  England,  and  was  a  most  useful  citizen, 
in  other  ways  besides  accumulating  his  splendid  collection  of  pic- 
tures. He  is  believed  to  have  saved  the  credit  of  the  country  in 
the  commercial  cri-is  of  1793,  by  his  proposal  of  an  issue  of  ex- 
chequer bills  ;  and  it  was  through  him  that  the  discovery  of  the 
life-boat  was  established  anil  rewarded.  His  collection  of  pic- 
tures was  purchased  by  government  for  57,000/.,  to  be  the  foun- 
dation of  a  National  Gallery  of  Paintings.  Mr.  Angerstein  died 
Payne  iQ  1823,  at  the  age  of  ninety-one.  Mr.  Payne  Knight 

Knigth.  died  in  the  next  year,  bequeathing  his  collection  of 
medals,  drawings,  and  bronzes  —  worth  30,000/.  —  to  the  B;  it  -h 
Museum.  Mr.  Knight  was  an  eminent  Greek  scholar,  and  of 
high  cultivation  in  every  way ;  and  his  accomplishments  were 
ennobled  by  a  magnificent  public  spirit.  The  Duchess  of  Dev- 
Dnchess  of  onsliire,  who  died  in  the  same  year,  devoted  her  whole 
DeTonshiie.  fortune  to  the  promotion  of  the  arts.  She  caused  ex- 
cavations to  be  made  at  Rome,  which  restored  to  light  many 
precious  relics  of  antiquity  that  misrht  otherwise  have>  lain  buried 
Dwhnsof  forever.  In  another  way,  the  Duchess  of  Rutland 
Rutland.  —  wno  died  jn  1 £25,  in  middle  life  —  was  a  benefac- 
tress of  the  arts  and  of  society  ;  she  built  Belvoir  Castle,  super- 
intending its  erection  for  twenty-five  years  with  a  vigilant  inter- 
est and  taste.  All  the  neighboring  villages  and  lands  were  in  a 
constant  .-tate  of  improvement  through  her  care ;  and  she  obtained 
many  premiums  from  the  Society  for  the  Promotion  of  Arts  and 
Manufactures,  for  her  agricultural  improvements  and  skill  in 
planting.  It  is  no  wonder  that  a  multitude  of  weeping  mourners 
followed  in  her  funeral  train. 

There  were  women  among  the  authors  who  died  during  this 
period,  whom  the  world  was  sorry  to  part  with.  The  venerable 
MIS.  Bar-  Mrs,  Barbauld,  whose  writings  were  small  in  bulk,  but 
b»uid.  eminent  in  beauty,  died,  very  old,  in  1825.  Her  father 

had  permitted  her  to  share  the  classical  education  of  her  brother : 
and  the  result  was  seen  in  the  mature  richness  of  her  mind,  and 
the  remarkable  beauty  of  her  style.  Charles  James  Fox  de- 
clared her  •*  Essay  on  the  Inconsistency  of  Human  Expectations  " 
to  be  the  finest  essay  in  our  language  ;  and  her  u  Plea  for  the 


CHAP.  XII.]       PATRONS  OF  ART.  — AUTHORS.  497 

Repeal  of  the  Corporation  and  Test  Acts  "  was  like  a  trumpet- 
call  to  the  whole  host  of  English  Dissenters.     Her  private  life 
was  full  of  honor  and  of  charm.       Then  there  was  Jane  Taylor, 
who  wrote  the  delightful  "  Contributions  of  Q.  Q.,"   jane  Taylor. 
which  are  to  be  found  in  thousands  of  homes  ;  and   Mrs.  Bad- 
Mrs.  Radcliffe,  the  mother  of  modern  English  romance ;  cliffe- 
and  Sophia  Lee,  one  of  the  writers  of  the  "  Canterbury   Sophia  Lee. 
Tales;"  and  Mrs.  Piozzi,  once  Mrs.  Thrale,  the  host-   Mra-  Piozri- 
ess  and  friend  of  Dr.  Johnson,  and  the  recorder  of  much  that  we 
know  of  him  :   all  these  passed  away  within  this  period.     And 
also  the  busy,  complacent,  useful  Richard  Lovell  Edge- 
worth,  who  put  us  upon  improving  our  principles  and 
methods  of  education,  and  was  full  of  mechanical  projects  which 
set  other  people  thinking  and  inventing  and  maturing ;  and  the 
pompous    Dr.  Parr,  who   believed    himself  a   second 
Johnson,  when  Johnson  was  more  thought  of  than  he 
is  now  ;  Parr,  of  whom  Person  said  that  "  he  would  have  been 
a  great  man  but  for  three  things  —  his  trade,   his  wife,  and  his 
polities."     His  trade  was  school-keeping,  lor  which  he  was  unfit; 
his  wife  was,  as  she  took  no  pains  to  conceal,  anything  but  amia- 
ble ;  and  his  politics  were  ultra- liberal  —  a  great  offence  to  the 
ministry  when  he  dined  with  the  Queen,  and  said  grace  at  Alder- 
man Wood's  table.      He  had  acted  with  a  firmness  and  modera- 
tion which  gained  him  respect  at  the  time  of  the  Birmingham 
riots  in  1791,  when  his  house  and  library  were  threatened  with 
the  same  fate  as  those  of  his  friend,  Dr.  Priestley ;  and  his  repu- 
tation stood  high  on  account,  not  only  of  his  scholarship,  but  of 
some  sermons  and  tracts  which  he  had  published ;  so  that,  though 
his  fame  at  the  time  can  now  be  hardly  understood,  he  was  in 
truth  by  no  means  beneath  the  notice  of  those  who  were  bound 
to  watch  the  proceedings  of  the  Queen,  and  who  were  scandalized 
at  her  choice  of  her  domestic  chaplain.     The  virtuous   Lindley 
Lindley  Murray  died  in  182H,  at  an  advanced  age.   Mu«r»y- 
While   learning  our  grammar  of  him,   in  our  young  days,  and 
growing   tired   of  his    name,   as    associated    with   dull    lessons, 
we  little  knew  to  how  gooJ  a  man  that  name  belonged.     Lindley 
Murray  was  an  American;  and    he    came  over  to   England  in 
middle  life,    and  remained  with    us  solely  for  the  sake    of  the 
mildness  of  our  climate,  which  was  rendered  necessary  to  him  by 
the   loss  of  health.     Under  a   condition    of  muscular  weakness 
which  prevented  his  walking  for  the  rest  of  his  days,  he  content- 
edly gave  up  the  usual  objects  and  amusements  of  life,  and  hum- 
bly devoted  himself  to  be  as  useful  as  he  could  from  his  invalid 
chair.     His  school-books  spread  by  tens   of  thousands  over  both 
his  native  and  his  adopted  country ;  and  the  proceeds  might  have 
made  him  very  rich.     But  he  thought  he  had  enough  already  for 
VOL.  ii.  32 


498  HISTORY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [Boos  IL 

his  simple  tastes  and  moderate  desires  ;  and  he  gave  away  to  those 
who  were  in  need  the  entire  profits  of  his  works.  Thus,  much 
as  we  have  learned  from  his  books,  we  may  learn  something  bet- 
ter from  his  life.  A  great  public  benefactor,  who  died  in  1821, 
James  was  Mr.  James  Perry,  of  the  "  Morning  Chronicle," 

Perry.  wno  gave  a  new  and  elevated  character  and  influence 

to  the  newspaper  press.  He  was  a  scholar  and  a  gentleman  ; 
and  his  attainments  and  character  could  not  have  wrought  in  a 
more  important  direction  than  in  that  which  he  chose.  The 
press  is  now  called  the  fourth  power  in  the  state  ;  and  just  when 
the  need  of  this  power  arose,  the  right  man  came  to  regulate,  re- 
fine, and  elevate  it. 

Of  those  whose  divine  office  it  is  to  refine  and  elevate  the 
whole  mass  of  society  —  the  poets  —  we  lost  some  of  great  name 
within  a  few  years. 

The  good  and  accomplished  Bishop  Heber  —  more  known  and 
Bishop  valued,  perhaps,  by  the  beauty  of  his  hymns  than  by 

Heber.  anv  other  of  his  many  qualifications  —  was  suddenly 

snatched  away  in  the  midst  of  his  usefulness  in  India.  He  was 
found  dead  in  his  bath  —  it  was  believed  from  apoplexy  —  in 
April,  1826.  His  religious  fervor  gave  a  freshness  of  expression 
to  his  devotional  poetry,  which,  if  it  does  not  >tand  in  the  stead 
of  originality  of  thought,  supplies  us  with  what  is  always  revered 
by  all  minds  —  originality  of  feeling.  The  hymn-;  of  Bishop 
Heber  have,  therefore,  made  their  way  among  Christians  of  all 
denominations,  and  caused  him  to  be  ranked  amon;;  the  poets  of 
his  time.  His  age  was  only  forty-three.  In  the  last  century, 
Kobert  the  poems  of  Robert  Bloomfield,  the  farmer's  boy, 

Bioomfieid.  were  brought  into  notice  by  Mr.  Capel  Lofft  —  a  man 
of  letters  and  something  of  a  poet  himself.  The  protector  and 
protected  died  within  a  year  of  each  other  —  the  poet  in  August, 
Ha  le  1823  ;  the  man  of  letters  in  May,  1824.  And  Hay- 

ley,  the  friend  of  Cowper,  and  author  of  some  poems 
which  had  a  good  deal  of  popularity  in  their  day,  was  gone. 
A  deeper  cau?e  for  mourning,  however,  than  any  we  have  men- 
tioned —  perhaps  the  deepest  of  the  period  —  was  in  the  un- 
timely loss  of  three  great  poets,  —  Byron,  Shelley,  and  Keats. 
B  ron  At  the  time,  the  mourning  for  Byron  was  infinitely 

the  widest  and  loudest  ;  but  it  is  not  so  now,  and  it 
can  never  be  so  again.  His  extraordinary  popularity  during  his 
life,  and  for  some  time  afterwards,  and  even  now  among  survivors 
of  his  own  generation,  was  justified  by  the  fact  of  its  existence. 
Such  a  popularity  never  arises,  much  less  endures,  without  some 
reason  ;  but  the  reason  was  of  a  temporary  nature  ;  and  the  fame 
must  be  temporary  accordingly.  Byron's  power,  which  was 
great,  employed  itself  in  uttering,  from  his  own  consciousness, 


CHAP.  XIL]  DEATH  OF  POETS.  499 

the  discontents  of  his  time.  He  was  unaware  of  this  and  always 
believed  himself  an  isolated  being,  doomed  to  live  and  d  e  with- 
out sympathy  ;  whereas  he  was  the  mouth-p  ece  of  t;.e  needs  and 
troubles  of  men  in  a  trans. tion  state  of  society.  When  men 
found  their  troubles  told,  and  their  discontents  avowed,  in  verse 
of  a  high  order,  by  a  man  of  high  rank,  youthful,  proud,  and 
egotistical,  they  rushed  into  a  frantic  sympathy  with  him,  and 
received  from  hi  n  as  true,  noble,  and  beautiful,  much  that  nill 
not  stand  a  comparison  with  nature,  morality,  and  the  everlasting 
principles  of  taste.  Lord  Byron  could  not  produce,  ex  ept  by 
snatches,  what  was  permanently  true,  because  the  eye  of  his  soul 
was  perplexed  and  dimmed  by  troubles  w  ich  prevented  his  see- 
ing things  as  they  are;  he  could  not  produce  what  w.is  inherently 
noble,  because  he  was  almost  wholly  engrossed  by  suffering 
moods  of  his  own  mind  ;  he  could  not  produce  what  must  be 
lastingly  beautiful,  beeau  e  he  strove  after  affectations.  As  a 
greater  than  himself  said  of  his  irony  and  affectations  :  "  It  is  a 
paltry  originality  which  makes  solemn  things  gay,  and  gay  things 
solemn  ;  yet  it  will  fascinate  thousands,  by  the  very  diabolical 
outrage  of  their  sympathies."  So  said  Keats,  in  pain  and  dis- 
gust at  the  levity  of  a  passage  of  Byron,  though  no  man  could 
reli-h  humor  more  keen  y.  Thousands  were  fascinated,  and  from 
the  cause  assigned.  Unless  it  were  Scott's,  Byron's  was  the 
greatest  literary  fame  of  our  own  times.  It  was  kepi  up  by  the 
interest  universally  taken,  a  id  pointedly  invited  by  the  poet  him- 
self, iu  his  private  misfortunes.  His  life  was  cursed  by  misfor- 
tune from  his  birth ;  and  his  earlier  griets  so  injured  him  as  to 
make  him  himself  the  creator  of  his  later  ones,  His  lite  was  not 
pure,  nor  his  heart  affectionate,  nor  his  temper  disciplined. 
There  was  good  enough  in  him  by  starts,  and  by  virtue  of  his 
genius,  to  suggest  wliat  he  might  have  been,  if  reared  under 
good  influences.  He  wandered  about  the  world  during  the  lat- 
ter years  of  his  short  life ;  and  finally  repaired  to  Greece,  to 
g  ve  what  aid  he  could  against  the  Turks.  There  he  died  of 
fever,  under  a  steady  refusal  to  accept  of  timely  medical  aid,  on 
the  19th  of  April,  1824.  In  Keat<,  the  world  lost  a  Keatg 
poet  of  infinite  promise.  He  was  little  more  than  a 
youth  when  he  died ;  but  he  had  made  so  vigorous  and  rapid  a 
growth  in  power  and  wisdom,  and  was  learning  so  to  wield  his 
magnificent  faculties,  that  those  who  have  studied  his  life  and 
writings  are  dazzled  at  the  mere  conception  of  what  he  might 
have  become.  The  world  did  not  recognize  his  quality  while  he 
lived  —  indeed  there  was  scarcely  time  tor  them  to  do  so  —  and 
some  few  ignorantly  d  -nied  and  scoffed  at  its  pretension  ;  but 
year  by  year  his  name  is  oftener  mentioned,  and  more  and  more 
minds  are  kindled  at  the  scattered  flames  of  his  young  genius. 


500  HISTORY  OF  THE  PEACE.  [BOOK  IL 

which  would,  if  death  had  spared  him,  have  shone  like  a  lofty 
beacon  above  the  ordinary  level  of  human  intellect.  Men  are 
often  least  conscious  of  their  greatest  losses  ;  and  in  this,  gener- 
ations are  like  individuals.  Keats  died  at  Rome,  in  February, 
1821,  in  the  twenty-fifth  year  of  his  "age  ;  and  when  the  news 
arrived  in  England,  few  heard,  and  fewer  still  regarded  it. 
After  the  lapse  of  a  quarter  of  a  century,  his  fame  is  rising. 
He  was  soon  —  in  a  year  and  a  half —  followed  by  his  friend 
Shell  Shelley,  who  was  drowned  at  the  age  of  twenty-nine 

off  the  coast  of  Italy.  Shelley  was  a  man  of  a  noble 
and  exquisite  nature.  He  "  was  the  most  truthful  of  men,"  and 
of  the  most  godlike  benevolence.  "  His  aspect  had  a  certain 
seraphical  character,"  we  are  told ;  and  in  that,  it  was  a  fair 
manifestation  of  himself.  He  was  idolatrously  beloved  by  those 
who  knew  him  face  to  face ;  but  his  age  and  he  were  not  on  the 
best  terms.  There  might  be  fault  on  both  sides  —  some  defect 
of  prudence  and  patience  on  his  ;  and,  of  course,  a  great  want 
of  enlightenment  on  the  other:  of  course,  because  the  greatest 
poets,  as  indeed  the  loftiest  men  of  every  order,  have  to  educate 
their  followers  up  to  the  power  of  appreciation  of  themselves. 
Thus  Shelley  was  persecuted  for  his  opinions ;  tortured  in  his 
domestic  affections  by  Lord  Eldon,  who,  with  all  his  law,  had  no 
knowledge  of  the  rights  of  opinion ;  and  society  not  only  looked 
on  quietly,  but  a  multitude  applauded.  So  it  was  in  his  own 
day ;  and  moreover,  every  act  of  his  life  —  a  life  of  singular 
purity  and  disinterestedness,  when  some  crudenesses  of  youth 
were  gone  by  —  was  criticized  and  mocked  by  little  minds  which 
could  hardly  open  to  receive  the  least  of  his  thoughts.  Yet, 
unpopular  as  he  was,  and  young  when  he  died,  he  did  more  than 
any  other  man  to  direct  and  vivify  the  poetical  aspiration  of 
our  time.  Shelley  still  lives  to  us,  not  only  in  his  own  writings, 
as  yet  but  partially  diffused,  but  in  the  whole  body  and  spirit  of 
our  recent  poetry,  and  existing  poetical  life. 

We  have  presented  and  summed  up  the  gains  and  losses  of 
close  of  the  a  seven  years'  period.  We  have  now  to  enter  upon 
period.  another,  shorter,  but  not  less  alive  with  incident  and 
the  spirit  of  progress. 


E-ND    OF    VOL.   II. 


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